Whatever Happened to Catfish

[Jim_C]

I know a bunch of you just read the title and are laughing your rears off.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and I have not seen farm raised catfish in the local markets in “years”.

What I have seen, and what we ate tonight, is farm raised Talapia. It was muddier than all get-outs. It makes catfish taste like high sierra stream trout.

So what has happened to catfish in the marketplace? How can it, or has it, been supplanted by Talapia?

Now I know I can order it online from the southern region, but with shipping I may as well be ordering lobster from Maine.

Your thoughts?

 

[Fueling Around]

Look for Swai in the stores. It is a catfish variety from Indochina. I guess Swai sounds more exotic than catfish?

IMHO local catfish got hit by the marketing to make people believe they need to eat something ... better. A lot of money got spent developing aqua culture of tilapia for the US market.
Myself, I don't like catfish or tilapia
Reminds me of the getting people back to eating beef by convincing them Angus beef was better. I cannot tell the difference between Angus or the other meat breeds.

 

[Gonna Smoke]

So what has happened to catfish in the marketplace? How can it, or has it, been supplanted by Talapia?

I would guess this to be true. Even here in the southeast, tilapia is everywhere as is swai, but catfish is readily available, also. I have never knowingly eaten tilapia or swai so I have no opinion of their taste, but I do like catfish. Fortunately, I don't have to buy fish...

Reminds me of the getting people back to eating beef by convincing them Angus beef was better. I cannot tell the difference between Angus or the other meat breeds.

This is a topic for another day, but YES, I agree...