Re: NANFA-L-- Carp News (was: Fish crash)

dlmcneely-in-lunet.edu
Mon, 23 May 2005 12:59:00 -0500

----- Original Message -----
From: Moontanman-in-aol.com
Date: Monday, May 23, 2005 11:59 am
Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- Carp News (was: Fish crash)

>>bighead and
> > grass carp
>
> Is there any chance these fish are good to eat?
>
> Moon

Grass carp is a very delicious, white fleshed fish. The aquacultural
extension service here-in-Langston University produces triploids for
farm use, and sells the excess to retailers and private customers. I
buy a couple of medium sized (12-18 lbs) ones a couple of times a
year. I filet them, skin the filets, cut off all visible fat and loose
connective tissue, and cut them into serving sized pieces, which I
freeze. Whenever I want fish, I cook some up in whatever way I want-in-
the time. The forked, intramuscular bones in a fish this size are
large enough that they simply pop out of the cooked fish in the same
way the ribs and vertebral column do if fish is cooked with those in.
Though I've not prepared it that way, I suspect that grilling a whole
fish on a wood fire like Tambaqui is done in Brazil would be sumptous,
too. For those who don't know, Tambaqui is a large Characin (reaches
40 kg) that occurs in the Amazon drainage. Aquarists sometimes call
it "pacu," though in Brazil that name is reserved to several much
smaller characins, of the type sometimes called "silver dollars" by
aquarists. These fish only reach a kilogram or so in weight, and are
so bony that most N. Americans would consider them inedible -- though
they are scored and deep fried by Brazilians, like some people do small
suckers here.

David L. McNeely, Ph.D., Professor of Biology
Langston University; P.O. Box 1500
Langston, OK 73050; email: dlmcneely-in-lunet.edu
telephone: (405) 466-6025; fax: 405) 466-3307
home page http://www.lunet.edu/mcneely/index.htm

"Where are we going?" "I don't know, are we there yet?"

>
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