More on Carp

Sunday night, after enjoying dinner and drinks at our local haunt, Enid's, Jenni, Lauren, and I went to go say goodbye to the plastic tub of Carp on Nassau Avenue before we all went home to our families and they were all eaten by our neighbors.

To our surprise the scene was far more horrifying than our initial encounter. The water only reached half way up the side of the tank and the fish were all lying on their sides, with their scales peeling off, DEAD. Even worse, there were two 24-inch black eels, barely alive themselves, floating around on top of the bed of dead fish. Luckily for all the Poles who had not done their shopping in a timely fashion, the price per pound had dropped a whole dollar.

WHY WOULD ANYONE EAT THIS????







After reading a few polish message boards, it seems like there is no better explanation other than blind traditionalism. No one actually seems to like the taste of carp, although most people will conceed that farmed carp, which is fed a grain based diet, is vastly superior to wild carp, which eat mud. According to one message board expert:

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Quoting: Dice
Is there any way to cook this fish so it's actually eatable?

You need to keep it in fresh water without any feeding for a couple days before the execution. That help the fish crap out all the mud it normally is plugged with.
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In what may be a related tradition, the fish are always bought live and then kept in the family bathtub until Christmas Eve. Now, I can think of lots of problems that could arise from keeping mud-filled animals in your bathtub for a few days, but it seems that such questions of hygiene are not high on the list of concerns for most Poles. Instead, I found complaints of house cats ripping the beasts to shreds, and of people naming their carp and then setting them free.

Please note that we are talking about the common carp here, not the much cuter Japanese variety: