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...

 

[clifish]

Tilapia is also very easy to breed and raise than catfish. Avoid any from China as they feed crap to them and it tastes like it.

 

[02ebz06]

Tilapia is also very easy to breed and raise than catfish. Avoid any from China as they feed crap to them and it tastes like it.

I heard the same thing that they feed them animal feces.

 

[TimboBBQ!]

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?

Man I love some Tennessee river fish. Can't beat the taste of river fish in my humble opinion. Can't hardly find folks anymore that commercial fish I can buy from but we have plenty of pond raised in my area.

 

[BrianGSDTexoma]

Around here its getting hard to buy frozen Catfish without STPP. That stuff does not belong in fish or seafood! I have friends that will give me river catfish but I am hooked on this Bluegill I order from Walleye Direct. I do get from Albertson sometimes if I want Blacken Catfish.

 

[ajbert]

I love me some catfish, but I've never bought any other than in a restaurant. Used to catch my own for a number of years, though. No catfish where I live but plenty of trout. I laugh when I see how much trout goes for in the local grocery stores.

 

[pineywoods]

They figured out tilapia grows faster than catfish so farm raised tilapia is faster and less time means less feed so cheaper to produce. When aquaponics all of a sudden became the "new fad" instead of hydroponics they said raise tilapia since they grow faster. The only thing they didn't say was that at the time they were importing tilapia for about 20-25 cents a pound.

 

[in. pred]

best catfish of them all is a 5-6# flathead. farm cats are channel cats. entirely different taste to them. flathead is like cod! and the belly meat is like a chicken breast and fish fillet hybrid. its a very unique fish.