Ocean Watch
By Susan Scott
Monday, March 8, 1999
I recently returned from a working trip to Bangladesh where I traveled to the interior of the country with several other Hawaii residents. A carp by any other
name is flaky, deliciousThe first night of our visit there, our hostess, Minara, served an enormous fish for dinner.
"Delicious," I said, as I helped myself to another piece of flaky white meat. "What kind of fish is this?"
"Rui," she said.
"Do you know the English name?"
She shook her head. "Sorry."
The next evening, Minara served another big fish, equally good tasting.
"This one we call catla," she said, explaining she raised them in her pond. She asked if I were interested in fish, and I said I was.
"Then tomorrow I will take you fishing and you can tell me the English names."
And so the next morning, I went on one of the most unusual fishing trips of my life. We went to her aquaculture pond, about half the size of a football field, where she instructed several men to drag a net across the pond.
At first, it seemed as if such a move would easily clean the pond of all its fish. Not so. I was astonished at how high these bulky, 5-pound fish jumped from the water to avoid the net.
The fishermen, however, were accomplished in their technique and eventually landed one rui and one catla.
I stared at the quivering white creatures, covered with large scales. Everyone watched me, waiting to hear the English names. It would be a long wait -- I had no idea what kind of fish these were.
Later that week, we returned to the capital city of Dhaka, where I spotted a poster on the fish of Bangladesh. And there they were.
The first two species pictured were our fish. However, they were labeled only by their scientific names, Catla catla and Labeo rohita. It wasn't until I was leaving the country that I learned the type of fish Minara was raising.
In a book called "Wetlands of Bangladesh," I read that rui and catla are the two local, major carp. It surprised me to discover that those great-tasting fish were carp, since this family has such a bad reputation in the U.S.
Carp, introduced to North America from Asia in the 19th century, thrive in sluggish streams and turbid ponds, especially those containing large amounts of organic matter.
Because they root around in mud, which is often polluted, they aren't usually good to eat. But our Bangladesh carp, fed rice husks in clean ponds, were another story.
Like Africa's tilapia, these hardy species are ideal for aquaculture in areas where the fish are native and the water is clean. It's human pollution that gives carp -- and tilapia -- a bad name.
Before I left Dhaka, we had dinner in another Bangladeshi home. When a plate containing a big fish passed my way, I asked, "Rui or catla?"
"You know Bangladeshi fish?" our surprised host asked.
I smiled. "Only the carps."
Marine science writer Susan Scott's Ocean Watch column
appears Mondays in the Star-Bulletin. Contact her at honu@aloha.net.
