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Reflections
Fishing 'magic': How carp became red salmon : Reflections : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisFishing 'magic': How carp became red salmon
| by Roger Matile
| 7/19/2012
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The December 2011 issue of Consumer Reports had an interesting article titled "Mystery Fish: The label said red snapper, the lab said baloney." Turned out after spending some bucks on DNA testing of samples of fish from markets and restaurants, CR found out (and I know you'll be completely shocked to hear this) that what you're told isn't necessarily the truth when it comes to what kind of fish you're cooking at home or eating at your favorite restaurant.
The worse case concerned red snapper, which I used to think tasted pretty good, but now I wonder what the heck it was I was really eating. Stated CR: "None of the 22 "red snappers" we bought at 18 markets could be positively identified as such."
You might think that this problem is of modern origin, given all the federal and state government funding cutbacks in the FDA and other consumer-related areas. After all, it's an established Washington, D.C. fact that government is bad, including government food inspectors. But, alas, you would be wrong. In fact, mislabeling of fish was one of the many problems that led to government regulation of the sales of meat, poultry and fish in the first place.
Locally, we've got our own story of mystery fish and it goes all the way back to the 1870s when experts, with the best of intentions, created a host of problems with invasive wildlife we're still dealing with today.
One of the most annoying of these groups was the American Acclimatization Society. Under the leadership of New York pharmacist Eugene Schieffelin, the society reportedly decided to introduce every bird mentioned in Shakespeare's plays to North America. Today we can thank these cranks for the pestiferous starlings and English sparrows that are so destructive.
But while annoying, the acclimatizatizers didn't hold a candle to the destruction to natural habitat and native species caused by the federal government. By 1873, the U.S. Fish Commission was seriously considering the importation of European carp to be placed in our waterways, and later in the decade they'd talked themselves into acting on the idea. Why? Well, because, according to the commission's report for 1873-1875, it was such a good-tasting fish and because it could survive in water conditions that drove other species out.
After quite a bit of bother and expense, the commission managed to import sufficient carp as breeding stock. The fish were considered so valuable they were placed in the reflecting pool at the Washington Monument for the first few years to assure they'd breed naturally. By the 1880s, there were enough that offers to stock them in the nation's rivers were accepted. The first 40 carp were stocked in the Fox River in Kendall County in 1882, with 20 more stocked in 1883. Upriver, the largest group, 1,000 fingerlings, were stocked at Aurora in 1886, with 500 more at Elgin in 1892.
And with the nation's rivers in such deplorable shape, stocking carp became a popular activity for both the federal government and their colleagues at the state level. But, as it turned out, people really didn't much like carp. As the Ottawa Republican reported in January 1895: "The German carp which have lately been propagating profusely in this country and for which extraordinary claims were made as a food fish, has not held out in the practical test...The trouble with them, says an old fisherman, is that they are soft and oily. The fat on them is like the fat of hogs."
W.E. Meehan, commissioner of fisheries of Pennsylvania was definitely not a carp supporter: "Possibly the carp is fit for food. Personally, I do not like his looks as a fish and I do not like the looks of the people I have seen buying him in the market."
Commercial fishermen, however, were finding carp of value. M.D. Hurley, president of the Illinois Fishermen's Association, noted in an 1898 letter to the U.S. Fish Commission: "...the wonderful demand for Illinois River carp from Eastern markets where they are sold for Illinois River carp, and not canned for 'salmon,' as many people believe."
In a 1902 statement, S.P. Bartlett, superintendent of the U.S. Fish Commission, and a resident of Quincy in western Illinois, argued (including a bit of honesty at the end): "This cry against the carp is a great big humbug-it is an outrage-they are a good fish if you know how to cook them, but not so good if you don't know how."
But despite the protestations of Hurley and Bartlett, apparently Illinois River carp were indeed being shipped east as carp, but then were being magically transformed into other species. As the Kendall County Record suggested in a report from Yorkville in October 1907: "For the past three or four years the river in this locality has been seined and thousands of pounds of carp taken out, which are shipped to New York, and there converted into red salmon and some other costly fish dishes."
In March 1911, A.H. Young of London, Ontario, Canada, explained to a group down in Ottawa exactly what happened after carp from the Fox and Illinois rivers were shipped east by the carload: "Instead of being eaten by New Yorkers, [carp] are shipped right back here to Illinois and you buy them. Don't believe it? Well, it's the truth, just the same. They have a system by which all bones are removed and the fish is then properly cured and becomes halibut, smoked white fish, and various other varieties of cured fish. Then you people out here in Illinois and all over the country, for that matter, eat carp and think them fine."
It gradually became conventional wisdom that carp were harmful because of their bottom feeding habits, which, it was thought, stirred up bottom sediment creating the state's murky waters. However, it was gradually realized the murky water came first, thanks to erosion and pollution, and the carp thrived because of it, not the other way around.
So today, the grand old scam continues, although the days of commercial fishing on the Fox and Illinois rivers are long gone. The action has simply moved elsewhere.
Looking for more local history? Visit http://historyonthefox.wordpress.com
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