On Sat 11 Oct 2008 10:15:12p, Gregory Morrow told us...

> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/ma...atfish-t.html?
>
>
> October 12, 2008
>
> NYT "Magazine": The Food Issue
>
> A Catfish by Any Other Name
>
> By PAUL GREENBERG
>

Good grief, Greg, why post extremely long articles when posting the link
and a brief personal synopsis or opinion would surfice?

--
Wayne Boatwright
(correct the spelling of "geemail" to reply)

*******************************************
Date: Saturday, 10(X)/11(XI)/08(MMVIII)
*******************************************
Countdown till Veteran's Day
4wks 2dys 1hrs 50mins
*******************************************
Cats allow man the pleasure of
caressing the tiger.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/ma...atfish-t.html?


October 12, 2008

NYT "Magazine": The Food Issue

A Catfish by Any Other Name

By PAUL GREENBERG


"RECENTLY I MET Roger Barlow, the president of the Catfish Institute in
Jackson, Miss., for a catfish lunch. Plates of blackened catfish Caesar
salad, catfish in a crawfish étouffée and Southern-fried catfish lay between
us, as did a P.R. folder embossed with the phrase "U.S. Farm-raised Catfish:
Safety You Can Trust." As the North American catfish's principal advocate,
Barlow wanted to focus on the positive. He described how U.S. catfish
adhered to the world's toughest quality standards; how, in their farm-raised
form, catfish weren't scavengers, as in nature, but rather sweet-tasting
surface-feeders, raised in well water and fattened on corn and soy. But by
and by our discussion reached a point at which Barlow revealed some
impending changes. Very soon U.S. farm-raised catfish, some of it anyway,
would not be called catfish.

'The name we have chosen, and the name we have market-tested," he said,
pausing slightly, "is Delacata." Delacata, he explained, was going to be a
specially filleted Grade-A piece of the best of the farmed North American
channel catfish. It was being tested at high-end bistros in California, and
the "Iron Chef America" judge Cat Cora had signed on to endorse it.

The rollout of Delacata should have been the 40-year-old catfish industry's
transcendental moment, marking catfish's transformation from a poor
subsistence food to America's most commercially successful farmed fish. But
on this blistering summer afternoon it seemed more like the North American
catfish's last stand. About a third of the region's growers have quit, and
those remaining increasingly see their ponds as liabilities. If attrition
continues apace, very little catfish will be farmed in the United States
before long.

The ostensible reason for the industry's collapse is last year's doubling of
feed and fuel prices. But as one farmer put it, the cost increases are just
the "knockout punch." Why North American catfish hit the ropes in the first
place and why some catfish might not be called catfish anymore cut to the
heart of the American food system's viability. For Delacata is not just
about getting a higher price to compensate for higher costs; it is about
America's ability to protect its food production and regulation from an
emergent Asia.

"In the struggle for survival," Charles Darwin famously wrote, "the fittest
win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting
themselves best to their environment." The channel catfish has
unquestionably adapted well to the environment farmers provided for it.
Fast-growing and hardy, it eats everything and comes to market with little
fuss. But not long ago, another fish arrived, threatening the
once-profitable symbiosis of North American farmer and North American
catfish. You have probably eaten this fish, but you don't know its name. It
was once called "catfish" (and many other names - some of them unprintable).
Nowadays, when it is sold in America, it is often simply called "fish." Let
me introduce you. It makes its home in the waters of Southeast Asia. You can
call it Pangasius.

VO THANH KHON leads me through a sparkling industrial park in Can Tho City,
Vietnam. Palm trees and tropical shrubbery rise gracefully along the path
with magenta 9-o'clock flowers blooming throughout. Khon, a pleasant man in
a pressed white shirt, stretches out his hand.

"You are looking at our virtue," he says.

After a quick speedboat ride across the Mekong River, Khon directs me to a
square pond. On Khon's signal, a boatman shovels dime-size pellets into the
water. A few dimples dot the surface. A splash here and there. Then, as if
the entire pond is moving to engulf the skiff, the water erupts into a
froth, drenching the boatman and showering those of us on shore. The pond is
almost more fish than water. Two-foot-long creatures, gray on top, white on
bottom, with faces resembling a slightly dimwitted "Star Wars" character,
interlock and wriggle. Appraising the fish, you might feel that the motto
for Bianfishco, the company for which Khon works - "Pangasius is our
nature"- is slightly creepy. Khon smiles broadly, though, for the roaring
of the feeding frenzy is literally the sound of money earning interest.

The fish in Khon's pond are known internationally by their genus, Pangasius,
and locally as tra. Near the top of the taxonomic chart, they share an order
with North American channel catfish, Siluriformes, and Vietnamese exporters
once sold tra in American stores under that reassuringly familiar
appellation. But while both fish have whiskers and white flesh, many epochs
separate their evolutionary divergence. In land-animal terms, calling tra
and their American cousins both "catfish" would be similar to affixing the
label "hoofed mammal" to all the different red meat we eat. True, American
consumers probably don't care all that much about taxonomy. They do,
however, care about brands. And since with fish the species name is the
brand, fortunes are at risk when names go astray.

If Vietnamese growers can be believed, tra may be the most efficient way on
earth to make animal protein. It takes three acres of grazing land to grow a
single 700-pound cow. That same land, flooded and turned over to channel
catfish ponds will generate 25,000 pounds of catfish. But in Vietnam, those
three acres will bring in up to 1 million pounds of tra. The question that
fish farmers outside of Southeast Asia ask is whether the Vietnamese are
competing on a level playing field. And if not, they wonder, are the
Vietnamese grabbing up huge swaths of the global white-fish market at the
expense of environmental and consumer safety?

These suspicions begin with the very beginning of the man-Pangasius
relationship. To illustrate, it's worth repeating a joke my translator told
me:

Question: "How do you tell farmed and wild fish apart?"

Answer: "The farmed fish is cross-eyed from staring up at the outhouse."

Though they are today raised like most farmed fish, Pangasius's
domestication did start under the privy. After they were introduced by
peasants into their "latrine ponds," Pangasius rooted around in, well, let's
call it "decaying organic matter," to obtain their fodder. When large
enough, the fish were sold domestically on the Mekong's floating markets.

This was the state of things in Vietnam. But ethnic Vietnamese living in
exile in central Cambodia took a different approach. Using cages suspended
below floating houseboats on Cambodia's Great Lake, or Tonle Sap, they fed
their fish a cleaner diet of rice bran and fish meal. Initially, a relative
of tra called basa looked like the "it" fish. It had low oxygen demands. And
farmers found that when they were fed a proper diet, they grew quickly and
had white flesh instead of the yellow-green color they had in the
latrine-pond environment.

But basa's pre-eminence was short-lived. When wars in Cambodia forced ethnic
Vietnamese to return to Vietnam, they found they needed to modify their
techniques. While basa can tolerate low oxygen levels, they would suffer at
the intense stocking densities Vietnamese farmers demanded. Tra, meanwhile,
didn't mind the close quarters. The only thing they would do differently
when high densities reduced oxygen too far was to occasionally rise to the
surface and stick their alien-looking mouths above the surface.

Tra, it turned out, can breathe air.

CATFISH ISN'T THE first product from Asia to spark emotional trade disputes.
But unlike the public hood-bashing that autoworkers dealt an unwitting
Japanese car in 1992, what came to be known in the American South as "the
catfish wars" simmered out of sight, a resentment that finally boiled up out
of the very bottom of America's economy.

Greensboro, Ala., is in the heart of the Black Belt, a region of dark soil
and extreme poverty that overlaps with catfish country from the Carolinas
into East Texas. Approaching Greensboro from the south, the signs of
deprivation are apparent. A collapsed building spilling out its contents
onto the intersection of Route 61 and U.S. Highway 80 shows no signs of
impending repair, and a ministry's roadside sign nearby advises, "Wife Abuse
Is Not a Way of Conveying Love."

The land, too, is troubled. Fields of soy and corn strobe by as does light,
fertile soil and the dark, rich-looking "gumbo" that was often sold to
unsuspecting carpetbaggers. It is gumbo land that set the conditions for
catfish farming, for unlike the productive Midwestern loam it resembles,
gumbo is mostly clay. It is practically watertight, though - excellent for a
catfish pond. And local farmers benefited handsomely as a result. After
prices for corn and soy plunged during the anti-Soviet grain embargo of the
late 1970s, catfish ponds became a financial salvation - a third leg to
stand on after soy and corn were kicked away.

But when Pangasius arrived in America at the end of the century, that leg
proved wobbly. Both channel catfish and Pangasius are cheap fish. Before
they shared a supermarket aisle, channel catfish were mostly eaten by
low-income families in the American South, while Pangasius fed socialist
workers in floundering late-Communist economies. By the time these two cheap
fish met in the United States, the contender from Southeast Asia had
developed an ability to duck under even rock-bottom prices. Pangasius can be
raised in much higher densities than North American channel catfish, and
they grow faster in Vietnam's winterless, tropical climate. Coupled with
cheap Vietnamese labor - a fraction of the already low costs of the American
South - Pangasius sold for a dollar a pound less than channel catfish. There
was also at the time of Pangasius's arrival no country-of-origin
requirements in food labeling. Consumers couldn't tell a Pangasius from a
channel catfish even if they wanted to.

Pangasius also benefited from American catfish's vulnerability to something
called "off-flavor." Off-flavor happens when blue-green algae predominate in
stagnant freshwater and emit geosim - a harmless, muddy-tasting compound
that passes easily into fish flesh. Since U.S. environmental regulations
limit the amount of water that can be discharged, algal blooms are common,
and catfish occasionally get that geosim taste.

Vietnamese farmers on the Mekong avoid the problem of off-flavor altogether.
Lax laws allow them to refresh ponds and discharge wastewater directly into
the Mekong River, and a result is fewer problems with off-flavor. And while
this might translate into worse environmental conditions for the Mekong, it
can mean a more consistent product that large retailers appreciate.

Exposing this inequity was just one of several fronts American catfish
farmers opened up against the Vietnamese in the trade war to follow. They
accused (justifiably, it turned out) Vietnamese growers of using
carcinogenic fungicides and antibiotics banned in the United States to get
higher yields from their ponds. They claimed that the Vietnamese were
"dumping" catfish on the American market, that is, selling them below fair
market value, something the Vietnamese vehemently deny. It was the dumping
issue that had the most traction when the battle went to the U.S. Department
of Commerce in 2002. American catfish farmers filed an "antidumping"
petition against Pangasius producers, demanding tariffs of up to 60 percent
to balance out the "dumping margin" - the difference between the price of
the fish in the Vietnamese market and the price in the U.S. market. They
also had opened up a legislative debate at the highest level. Earlier, in
2001, they persuaded a group of Southern senators to introduce amendments to
the agriculture appropriations bill that would prohibit Vietnamese catfish
from being called catfish.

Despite the concerns about the safety of Pangasius, free traders took that
fish's side, none more stridently than John McCain, who claimed that
"Americans like to eat them." A champion of normalizing relations with
Vietnam, McCain attacked the taxonomic revisionism with vigor. "With a
clever trick of Latin phraseology," McCain railed, "these Southern Senators
single-handedly undercut American trade policy in a troubling example of the
very parochialism we have urged the Vietnamese government to abandon. . . .
Vietnamese catfish are no different than American catfish by nutritional and
safety standards, but they are different in the eyes of the large, wealthy
agribusinesses on whose behalf this provision was slipped into the
agriculture appropriations bill."

Against McCain's wishes, the Southern senators won out, and later U.S.
farmers won their antidumping petition. Pangasius were thence forward to be
called basa or tra with tariffs added to their price. The Vietnamese
invasion was stopped cold, and the North American catfish was saved. For the
moment.

IN CHAU DOC, a statue of two intertwined Pangasius greets the traveler
heading toward Cambodia into the heart of fish-farming country. For those
who have traveled the Communist world, the statue is oddly familiar. With
its kitschy silver glitter and bold futurist outline, it recalls the
gigantic monuments to the Soviet space program.

Such is the importance of Pangasius in Vietnam. When the United States
implemented its catfish rulings, it was as if Apollo had shut the hatch on
Soyuz. A farmer shoveling feed pellets into the hole in her houseboat floor
was still distraught when I raised the issue this summer. "The American
people are O.K.," she said, "but the American government. . . ." She broke
off with a shake of her head.

But some here see the catfish wars as a boon. Flavio Corsin is one such
individual. A tall, loping Italian hailing from the trout-growing region
near Venice, Corsin is working with the World Wildlife Fund to establish
international quality standards for Pangasius through an initiative called
the Aquaculture Dialogues.

As someone with an intimate feel for Vietnamese culture (he did his
dissertation in a Vietnamese village and learned the language by ear),
Corsin says he thinks the trade war changed things. "In Vietnam, there is a
lot of public soul-searching when something goes wrong," he told me. "They
always say: 'Come here whenever you want. Tell us how we can improve.' "

Following the collapse of the American market, Vietnam scrambled for an
alternative. Europe was the perfect fit. Europeans had already invested
heavily in Vietnam's economic redevelopment, some of it in aquaculture (the
scientist who unlocked the hormonal secrets of breeding Pangasius in
captivity is a Frenchman). News of overfishing had also made Europeans wary
of wild-caught white fish like cod and sole.

The Vietnamese had also learned a lesson about product misrepresentation.
Pangasius quickly undercut European trout and sea-bass farmers just as it
did U.S. catfish growers, but it did so under its own name. Le Panga has
been a market phenomenon in France; in other E.U. nations, it is sold under
similar derivatives of its Latin name. The lack of negative association, the
neutral taste and above all the extremely low price has made it a
Continental staple. A recent Michael Moore-ish documentary, "Qu'est-ce que c
'est qu'un Panga?" ("What is a Panga?"), has had no effect. In the last few
years, European demand has helped raise Pangasius production to more than
two billion pounds a year - a nearly tenfold increase in the last decade.
Even as Vietnamese have found themselves largely shut out of the American
market, they have prospered elsewhere.

Vietnamese regulators also came to understand that conforming to Western
food-safety standards (or at least appearing to conform) was vital. There is
no international standard for farmed fish. In Vietnam alone, several
international organizations are trying to develop guidelines. But the sheer
number of small producers spread out along the Mekong presents particular
challenges.

"When I go to Europe, I try to explain that you cannot manage food safety in
developing countries the way you manage it in Europe," Flavio Corsin told
me. "Italy, for example, is based on individual farm inspection. Here, with
so many producers, you would need an army of inspectors to do the same job."
The food-safety option Corsin advocates is something called "Internal
Control Systems," or I.C.S., in which international organizations train
local farming cooperatives to inspect themselves. And while the I.C.S.
method recalls the Roman poet Juvenal's warning - "Who watches the
watchers?" - Corsin says he feels that the Vietnamese are mature enough now
to watch themselves because the industry is participating in the development
of the standards. "You have to identify the 20 percent of producers that are
doing the best and make them make the standards," he said. "That way you can
create the means to getting these practices adopted industrywide." American
catfish farmers were approached by the World Wildlife Foundation to
participate in setting standards, but they have generally refused. "We have
adhered to the highest standards for years," the Catfish Institute's Roger
Barlow told me, "and we don't want to be lumped together with an inferior
product."

It appears that the Vietnamese standards practices are having an effect.
Since I.C.S. procedures were implemented in Vietnam, the Food and Drug
Administration has found no violations in Vietnamese Pangasius. Individual
Vietnamese farmers are now lobbying to repeal the punitive U.S. tariffs,
some of them successfully. Nowadays when Pangasius does make it to American
consumers, it is often presented as just "fish" at hospitals and other large
institutions or, sometimes, under the names of more expensive fish, like
grouper.

IF THERE IS one point of common ground for Vietnamese and American fish
farmers, it is a dread of the world's largest aquaculturist: China. Chinese
researchers now travel the world in search of species that will thrive on
their own farms and have developed aquaculture programs for both North
American channel catfish and Vietnamese Pangasius. Here, all questions of
names and standards crumble under China's drive to sell at the cheapest
price. Farmers of Thai shrimp, South American tilapia and even Louisiana
crawfish have all watched their markets evaporate when Beijing alights. As
Barlow puts it, "China's is an economic model of creative destruction."

China's presence lobs a new grenade into the catfish name war. Today, only
channel catfish and other members of the North American fish family
Ictaluridae can be called "catfish" in the United States. But no law says
those Ictaluridae have to live in America. China can therefore keep North
American channel catfish in Chinese ponds and sell them to America as
catfish for less than what it costs Americans to grow them. And while
American law requires a package of Chinese catfish to say "product of
China," it will often be described on the same package as "Cajun" in much
larger type.

There is an added problem with Chinese-American catfish. Last year, after
detecting malachite green and crystal violet, both carcinogens, as well as
an anthrax-fighting antibiotic, the F.D.A. put an import alert on all
Chinese catfish. The F.D.A. however, is considering lifting the import once
a third-party Chinese certifier is approved. Curiously, the third-party
under consideration is an agency of the government of China.+

Infuriated American catfish growers have asked for more government
intervention. In the farm bill passed this year, catfish were put under the
Food Safety and Inspection Service, a subdivision of the Agriculture
Department that is separate from the F.D.A. and provides an extra layer of
regulation. The reason? Foreign exporters making products that fall within
the inspection-service dossier must meet similar standards as United States
producers. The Chinese and other producers will have to come into compliance
by December 2009.

Vietnam, meanwhile, a victor in real wars against both America and China, is
unflinching. "China is starting to farm tra," Nguyen Van Hao, a founder of
the Vietnamese Pangasius program, told me just before I left Ho Chi Minh
City. "We cannot say no. But we have great production here, and with better
technology, maybe our yields will be even higher." Not only are Vietnamese
now selectively breeding tra; they have even begun a hybridization program
to cross tra with the endangered giant Mekong catfish - an animal that grows
more than 10 feet long and can weigh half a ton.

American farmers, too, are trying out new crosses. A channel and blue
catfish cross is particularly promising. But it is the new name Delacata
that many hope will end the time of catfish troubles. Delacata is, like
Pangasius, a name with no pejorative associations. And now, after eight
years of catfish wars, disassociation is obligatory. As Jon Stamell, a
marketing consultant who was contracted briefly by the Vietnamese government
to rebrand Pangasius, said, "All of this fighting and disagreeing over a
product puts out a negative message to the consumer, and this has a way of
doubling back on you." When I asked Stamell what he thought of the name
Delacata, he paused. "Hmm," he said, "sounds like a car."

American catfish advocates, meanwhile, are driving forward. "I hear Delacata
's really taking off," the celebrity chef Cat Cora told me recently, not
long after renewing her endorsement contract with the Catfish Institute. "I'
d like to see it as a secret ingredient on 'Iron Chef.' "

-------


Paul Greenberg is a W. K. Kellogg Foundation food- and society policy
fellow. His book on the future of fish will be published by Penguin Press.

</>

Gregory Morrow wrote:

>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/ma...atfish-t.html?
>
>
> October 12, 2008
>
> NYT "Magazine": The Food Issue
>
> A Catfish by Any Other Name

<snip small book>

Blinky loves basa. I've mentioned it in here more than once, calling it
the best deal in town on tasty fish (the fillets I had last weekend were
$4.49US per pound; they were $3.99 for ages, but people seem to be
discovering them). I couldn't make it through that entire article, but
I read somewhere a while back that it's called basa here because when it
first started being imported it was called "Vietnamese catfish" and the US
catfish industry went a-whining to Uncle and got that name banned. Call it
what you will, it's yummy.


--
Blinky
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project: http://improve-usenet.org
Need a new news feed? http://blinkynet.net/comp/newfeed.html

On Sat 11 Oct 2008 10:33:19p, Mark Thorson told us...

> Wayne Boatwright wrote:
>>
>> Good grief, Greg, why post extremely long articles when posting the link
>> and a brief personal synopsis or opinion would surfice?
>
> Overflowed your floppy disk drive, did it?

Nope, put a cramp in my scrolling finger. :-)

And let's not forget those who have limited bandwidth.

A good reference and a few words about it should be enough for those
interested to pursue the link.

--
Wayne Boatwright
(correct the spelling of "geemail" to reply)

*******************************************
Date: Saturday, 10(X)/11(XI)/08(MMVIII)
*******************************************
Countdown till Veteran's Day
4wks 2dys 1hrs 30mins
*******************************************
(A)bort, (R)etry, (T)ake down entire
network?

Wayne Boatwright wrote:
>
> Good grief, Greg, why post extremely long articles when posting the link
> and a brief personal synopsis or opinion would surfice?

Overflowed your floppy disk drive, did it?

Wayne Boatwright wrote:
>
> On Sat 11 Oct 2008 10:33:19p, Mark Thorson told us...
>
> > Wayne Boatwright wrote:
> >>
> >> Good grief, Greg, why post extremely long articles when posting the link
> >> and a brief personal synopsis or opinion would surfice?
> >
> > Overflowed your floppy disk drive, did it?
>
> Nope, put a cramp in my scrolling finger. :-)
>
> And let's not forget those who have limited bandwidth.

Oh, yes. Those ASR-33 teletypes.

Blinky the Shark wrote:
> Gregory Morrow wrote:
>
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/ma...atfish-t.html?
>>
>>
>> October 12, 2008
>>
>> NYT "Magazine": The Food Issue
>>
>> A Catfish by Any Other Name
>
> <snip small book>
>
> Blinky loves basa. I've mentioned it in here more than once, calling
> it the best deal in town on tasty fish (the fillets I had last
> weekend were $4.49US per pound; they were $3.99 for ages, but people
> seem to be discovering them). I couldn't make it through that entire
> article, but
> I read somewhere a while back that it's called basa here because when
> it first started being imported it was called "Vietnamese catfish"
> and the US catfish industry went a-whining to Uncle and got that name
> banned. Call it what you will, it's yummy.


I saw "Basa" at the grocery store the other day and it sure wasn't cheap.
Hell, farm raised U.S. catfish (and it's farm raised all around west TN, AR
and MS) isn't cheap anymore; it hasn't been for quite a while. When it
starts showing up on the menus of restaurants topped with cream sauces,
that's when the price goes up. Remember when no one had ever heard of
Tilapia? LOL

Jill

In article >,
"jmcquown" > wrote:

> Blinky the Shark wrote:
> > Gregory Morrow wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/ma...atfish-t.html?
> >>
> >>
> >> October 12, 2008
> >>
> >> NYT "Magazine": The Food Issue
> >>
> >> A Catfish by Any Other Name
> >
> > <snip small book>
> >
> > Blinky loves basa. I've mentioned it in here more than once, calling
> > it the best deal in town on tasty fish (the fillets I had last
> > weekend were $4.49US per pound; they were $3.99 for ages, but people
> > seem to be discovering them). I couldn't make it through that entire
> > article, but
> > I read somewhere a while back that it's called basa here because when
> > it first started being imported it was called "Vietnamese catfish"
> > and the US catfish industry went a-whining to Uncle and got that name
> > banned. Call it what you will, it's yummy.
>
>
> I saw "Basa" at the grocery store the other day and it sure wasn't cheap.
> Hell, farm raised U.S. catfish (and it's farm raised all around west TN, AR
> and MS) isn't cheap anymore; it hasn't been for quite a while. When it
> starts showing up on the menus of restaurants topped with cream sauces,
> that's when the price goes up. Remember when no one had ever heard of
> Tilapia? LOL
>
> Jill

Tilapia fillet is out of my price range now. So is catfish fillet at
$4.99. :-( Even nuggets are now up to $2.99.
Tilapia imho does not taste good enough to pay $4.99 per lb. for. I'd
rather eat whiting.

On the up-side, I scored 4 t-bone beef steaks for $3.99 this morning.
;-) Each weighed over 16 oz. each. They are currently frozen and I'll
probably actually fire up the wood grill for those!

Been awhile since I've blown $20.00 on steaks.
--
Peace! Om

"He who has the gold makes the rules"
--Om

"He who has the guns can get the gold."
-- Steve Rothstein

jmcquown wrote:

> Blinky the Shark wrote:
>> Gregory Morrow wrote:
>>
>>
>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/ma...atfish-t.html?
>>>
>>>
>>> October 12, 2008
>>>
>>> NYT "Magazine": The Food Issue
>>>
>>> A Catfish by Any Other Name
>>
>> <snip small book>
>>
>> Blinky loves basa. I've mentioned it in here more than once, calling
>> it the best deal in town on tasty fish (the fillets I had last weekend
>> were $4.49US per pound; they were $3.99 for ages, but people seem to be
>> discovering them). I couldn't make it through that entire article, but
>> I read somewhere a while back that it's called basa here because when
>> it first started being imported it was called "Vietnamese catfish" and
>> the US catfish industry went a-whining to Uncle and got that name
>> banned. Call it what you will, it's yummy.
>
>
> I saw "Basa" at the grocery store the other day and it sure wasn't
> cheap. Hell, farm raised U.S. catfish (and it's farm raised all around
> west TN, AR and MS) isn't cheap anymore; it hasn't been for quite a
> while. When it

Which is why I, a catfish lover, discovered basa.

> starts showing up on the menus of restaurants topped with cream sauces,
> that's when the price goes up. Remember when no one had ever heard of
> Tilapia? LOL

Aye.

And skirt steak is another example.

Right now, I'm loving flat iron steaks -- and dreading them being
discovered and winding up at $14.99 instead of $5.99. Shhhhh! Our little
secret...


--
Blinky
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project: http://improve-usenet.org
Need a new news feed? http://blinkynet.net/comp/newfeed.html

On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 05:31:40 GMT, Wayne Boatwright wrote:

> On Sat 11 Oct 2008 10:33:19p, Mark Thorson told us...
>
>> Wayne Boatwright wrote:
>>>
>>> Good grief, Greg, why post extremely long articles when posting the link
>>> and a brief personal synopsis or opinion would surfice?
>>
>> Overflowed your floppy disk drive, did it?
>
> Nope, put a cramp in my scrolling finger. :-)
>
> And let's not forget those who have limited bandwidth.
>
> A good reference and a few words about it should be enough for those
> interested to pursue the link.

the way you fail to trim sometimes leaves little room to complain.

your pal,
blake

On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 03:23:22 -0500, Omelet >
wrote:


>
>Tilapia fillet is out of my price range now. So is catfish fillet at
>$4.99. :-( Even nuggets are now up to $2.99.
>Tilapia imho does not taste good enough to pay $4.99 per lb. for. I'd
>rather eat whiting.

Catfish nuggets are $1.99 this week. Basa fillets are $2.99. I like
the nuggets blackened for por-boys. I love perch but they were $9.99
which is way to much.

>On the up-side, I scored 4 t-bone beef steaks for $3.99 this morning.
>;-) Each weighed over 16 oz. each. They are currently frozen and I'll
>probably actually fire up the wood grill for those!
>
>Been awhile since I've blown $20.00 on steaks.

The place we shopped at yesterday had New York Strips for $3.99 so we
got 4. I hate to freeze them but we're saving them for a weekend
getaway with friends in a few weeks.

Lou

Lou Decruss wrote:
> The place we shopped at yesterday had New York Strips for $3.99 so we
> got 4. I hate to freeze them but we're saving them for a weekend
> getaway with friends in a few weeks.
>
> Lou


That's a steal! The grocery store here trumpeted NY Strips at $7.99/lb in
the sale flier as if it was a great thing.

Jill

In article >,
Lou Decruss > wrote:

> On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 03:23:22 -0500, Omelet >
> wrote:
>
>
> >
> >Tilapia fillet is out of my price range now. So is catfish fillet at
> >$4.99. :-( Even nuggets are now up to $2.99.
> >Tilapia imho does not taste good enough to pay $4.99 per lb. for. I'd
> >rather eat whiting.
>
> Catfish nuggets are $1.99 this week. Basa fillets are $2.99. I like
> the nuggets blackened for por-boys. I love perch but they were $9.99
> which is way to much.

I like them (nuggets) deep fried. I'll have to look for Basa. I've not
seen it.

>
> >On the up-side, I scored 4 t-bone beef steaks for $3.99 this morning.
> >;-) Each weighed over 16 oz. each. They are currently frozen and I'll
> >probably actually fire up the wood grill for those!
> >
> >Been awhile since I've blown $20.00 on steaks.
>
> The place we shopped at yesterday had New York Strips for $3.99 so we
> got 4. I hate to freeze them but we're saving them for a weekend
> getaway with friends in a few weeks.
>
> Lou

Ditto here for the T-bones!
--
Peace! Om

"He who has the gold makes the rules"
--Om

"He who has the guns can get the gold."
-- Steve Rothstein

blake murphy wrote:

> On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 05:31:40 GMT, Wayne Boatwright wrote:
>
> > On Sat 11 Oct 2008 10:33:19p, Mark Thorson told us...
> >
> >> Wayne Boatwright wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Good grief, Greg, why post extremely long articles when posting the
link
> >>> and a brief personal synopsis or opinion would surfice?
> >>
> >> Overflowed your floppy disk drive, did it?
> >
> > Nope, put a cramp in my scrolling finger. :-)
> >
> > And let's not forget those who have limited bandwidth.
> >
> > A good reference and a few words about it should be enough for those
> > interested to pursue the link.
>
> the way you fail to trim sometimes leaves little room to complain.
>


As Jack Benny was wont to say: "Well...".

:-)

In any case when posting an article I'll always post the text in addition to
the URL...it's a courtesy to those who don't care to click on a link.

Some used to cry "copyright violation!" when I posted articles but I haven't
heard that for a whiles, especially since I queried one complainer as to why
the articles I posted most always had a "Print this article" option...

And I haven't heard the "limited bandwidth" thang for a whiles, about a
decade ago IIRC it was a concern of primarily Europeans but it seems they've
joined the modern broadband world.

As lagniappe for Blinky and Sqwertz many WebTeeVee'ers (on older boxes)
would not be able to scroll down to read the whole article I posted, they'd
get a message saying, "This page is too big to display...". Ha...!!!


--
Best
Greg

In article > ,
"Gregory Morrow" > wrote:

> lagniappe

Thanks for adding a new word to my vocabulary. :-)
--
Peace! Om

"He who has the gold makes the rules"
--Om

"He who has the guns can get the gold."
-- Steve Rothstein

On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 10:54:54 -0400, "jmcquown" >
wrote:

>Lou Decruss wrote:
>> The place we shopped at yesterday had New York Strips for $3.99 so we
>> got 4. I hate to freeze them but we're saving them for a weekend
>> getaway with friends in a few weeks.
>>
>> Lou
>
>
>That's a steal! The grocery store here trumpeted NY Strips at $7.99/lb in
>the sale flier as if it was a great thing.

And they look beautiful. Meat prices jump around so much here we get
what's on sale so we have it on hand. I'd rather not freeze meat but
it's better than spending double when you need or want something
that's not on sale.

Lou

In article >,
Lou Decruss > wrote:

> On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 10:54:54 -0400, "jmcquown" >
> wrote:
>
> >Lou Decruss wrote:
> >> The place we shopped at yesterday had New York Strips for $3.99 so we
> >> got 4. I hate to freeze them but we're saving them for a weekend
> >> getaway with friends in a few weeks.
> >>
> >> Lou
> >
> >
> >That's a steal! The grocery store here trumpeted NY Strips at $7.99/lb in
> >the sale flier as if it was a great thing.
>
> And they look beautiful. Meat prices jump around so much here we get
> what's on sale so we have it on hand. I'd rather not freeze meat but
> it's better than spending double when you need or want something
> that's not on sale.
>
> Lou

Properly wrapped, it's not so bad. :-) I try tho' to let it not go past
1 year and try to make sure that it has no contact with oxygen.
--
Peace! Om

"He who has the gold makes the rules"
--Om

"He who has the guns can get the gold."
-- Steve Rothstein

On Sun 12 Oct 2008 06:25:00a, blake murphy told us...

> the way you fail to trim sometimes leaves little room to complain.
>
> your pal,
> blake
>

I'm by far not the only one. There seem to be more posters here that fail to
trim than those that do, and those that do often trim in such a way that you
tell who said what.

--
Wayne Boatwright
(correct the spelling of "geemail" to reply)

*******************************************
Date: Sunday, 10(X)/12(XII)/08(MMVIII)
*******************************************
Countdown till Veteran's Day
4wks 1dys 14hrs 41mins
*******************************************
Happiness is finding special
characters

.

On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 01:30:41 -0700, Blinky the Shark
> wrote:

>
>Which is why I, a catfish lover, discovered basa.

I love catfish too, but why aren't people all in a dither about
toxicity like they are with farm raised salmon? Those basa are raised
in crowded conditions.


--
I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number of carats in a diamond.

Mae West

On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:21:13 GMT, Wayne Boatwright
> wrote:

>
>I'm by far not the only one. There seem to be more posters here that fail to
>trim than those that do, and those that do often trim in such a way that you
>tell who said what.
>
>--
> Wayne Boatwright
>(correct the spelling of "geemail" to reply)

Which is only one more reason why I hate bottom posting. Most people
have no idea how to tell who said what in a long thread and just
strip. If the culture here was to top post, then the correct
attributions would stay with comments and nobody would need to
complain.


--
I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number of carats in a diamond.

Mae West

sf wrote:

> On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:21:13 GMT, Wayne Boatwright
> > wrote:
>
> >
> > I'm by far not the only one. There seem to be more posters here
> > that fail to trim than those that do, and those that do often trim
> > in such a way that you tell who said what.

> Which is only one more reason why I hate bottom posting. Most people
> have no idea how to tell who said what in a long thread and just
> strip. If the culture here was to top post, then the correct
> attributions would stay with comments and nobody would need to
> complain.

Usual dumbass shit from you. Properly trimmed comments are MORE
readable and easier to match to attributions. You pull out these
ridiculous strawman arguments to support your contention.





Brian

--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)

On 12 Oct 2008 20:04:52 GMT, "Default User" >
wrote:

>sf wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:21:13 GMT, Wayne Boatwright
>> > wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > I'm by far not the only one. There seem to be more posters here
>> > that fail to trim than those that do, and those that do often trim
>> > in such a way that you tell who said what.
>
>> Which is only one more reason why I hate bottom posting. Most people
>> have no idea how to tell who said what in a long thread and just
>> strip. If the culture here was to top post, then the correct
>> attributions would stay with comments and nobody would need to
>> complain.
>
>Usual dumbass shit from you. Properly trimmed comments are MORE
>readable and easier to match to attributions. You pull out these
>ridiculous strawman arguments to support your contention.
>
>
WTF are you talking about, asshole?


--
I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number of carats in a diamond.

Mae West

<sf> wrote in message ...
> On 12 Oct 2008 20:04:52 GMT, "Default User" >
> wrote:
>
>>sf wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:21:13 GMT, Wayne Boatwright
>>> > wrote:
>>>
>>> >
>>> > I'm by far not the only one. There seem to be more posters here
>>> > that fail to trim than those that do, and those that do often trim
>>> > in such a way that you tell who said what.
>>
>>> Which is only one more reason why I hate bottom posting. Most people
>>> have no idea how to tell who said what in a long thread and just
>>> strip. If the culture here was to top post, then the correct
>>> attributions would stay with comments and nobody would need to
>>> complain.
>>
>>Usual dumbass shit from you. Properly trimmed comments are MORE
>>readable and easier to match to attributions. You pull out these
>>ridiculous strawman arguments to support your contention.
>>
>>
> WTF are you talking about, asshole?
>

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about. Eat your hearts out, mushmouthed
fence-riders.

sf wrote:

> On 12 Oct 2008 20:04:52 GMT, "Default User" >
> wrote:

> >> Which is only one more reason why I hate bottom posting. Most
> people >> have no idea how to tell who said what in a long thread and
> just >> strip. If the culture here was to top post, then the correct
> >> attributions would stay with comments and nobody would need to
> >> complain.
> >
> > Usual dumbass shit from you. Properly trimmed comments are MORE
> > readable and easier to match to attributions. You pull out these
> > ridiculous strawman arguments to support your contention.

> WTF are you talking about, asshole?

What part did you fail to understand?




Brian

--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)

"Gregory Morrow" > wrote in message
m...
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/ma...atfish-t.html?
>
>
> October 12, 2008
>
> NYT "Magazine": The Food Issue
>
> A Catfish by Any Other Name

I don't care what they call it, catfish still tastes like crap.

Omelet wrote:

> In article >,
> Lou Decruss > wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 03:23:22 -0500, Omelet >
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> >
>> >Tilapia fillet is out of my price range now. So is catfish fillet at
>> >$4.99. :-( Even nuggets are now up to $2.99.
>> >Tilapia imho does not taste good enough to pay $4.99 per lb. for. I'd
>> >rather eat whiting.
>>
>> Catfish nuggets are $1.99 this week. Basa fillets are $2.99. I like
>> the nuggets blackened for por-boys. I love perch but they were $9.99
>> which is way to much.
>
> I like them (nuggets) deep fried. I'll have to look for Basa. I've not
> seen it.

I wonder if basa distribution is regional or perhaps just randomly spotty.
I may have written about it first in here, several months ago, I'd say,
when I think I discovered it. I've never *not* seen it available since.
(I don't know how long it may have been around before I noticed it.)


--
Blinky
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project: http://improve-usenet.org
Need a new news feed? http://blinkynet.net/comp/newfeed.html

Gregory Morrow wrote:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/ma...atfish-t.html?
>
>
> October 12, 2008
>
> NYT "Magazine": The Food Issue
>
> A Catfish by Any Other Name
>
> By PAUL GREENBERG

Ka-snip!

Yet another attempt to produce edible protein for pennies a pound and
then sell it at beef-steak prices. If I want farmed fish, I'll buy
trout. It's cheaper by the pound than those "bottom-feeder-fillets" anyway.

On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:21:13 GMT, Wayne Boatwright wrote:

> On Sun 12 Oct 2008 06:25:00a, blake murphy told us...
>
>> the way you fail to trim sometimes leaves little room to complain.
>>
>> your pal,
>> blake
>>
>
> I'm by far not the only one. There seem to be more posters here that fail to
> trim than those that do, and those that do often trim in such a way that you
> tell who said what.

it's a funny old world, wot?

your pal,
blake

On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:01:24 -0700, sf wrote:

> On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:21:13 GMT, Wayne Boatwright
> > wrote:
>
>>
>>I'm by far not the only one. There seem to be more posters here that fail to
>>trim than those that do, and those that do often trim in such a way that you
>>tell who said what.
>>
>>--
>> Wayne Boatwright
>>(correct the spelling of "geemail" to reply)
>
> Which is only one more reason why I hate bottom posting. Most people
> have no idea how to tell who said what in a long thread and just
> strip. If the culture here was to top post, then the correct
> attributions would stay with comments and nobody would need to
> complain.

that some people fail to trim properly is not a justification for
top-posting.

your pal,
blake

On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:33:44 -0400, dejablues wrote:

> "Gregory Morrow" > wrote in message
> m...
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/ma...atfish-t.html?
>>
>>
>> October 12, 2008
>>
>> NYT "Magazine": The Food Issue
>>
>> A Catfish by Any Other Name
>
> I don't care what they call it, catfish still tastes like crap.

well, if they called it 'crapfish,' it definitely wouldn't sell.

your pal,
blake

In article >,
blake murphy > wrote:

> On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:33:44 -0400, dejablues wrote:
>
> > "Gregory Morrow" > wrote in message
> > m...
> >>
> >> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/ma...atfish-t.html?
> >>
> >>
> >> October 12, 2008
> >>
> >> NYT "Magazine": The Food Issue
> >>
> >> A Catfish by Any Other Name
> >
> > I don't care what they call it, catfish still tastes like crap.
>
> well, if they called it 'crapfish,' it definitely wouldn't sell.
>
> your pal,
> blake

Farm raised is good. Not muddy tasting like the wild ones. Cleaner
water and food.
--
Peace! Om

"He who has the gold makes the rules"
--Om

"He who has the guns can get the gold."
-- Steve Rothstein

Interesting article, thanks for posting it.

Becca

none wrote:
> Ka-snip!
>
> Yet another attempt to produce edible protein for pennies a pound and
> then sell it at beef-steak prices. If I want farmed fish, I'll buy
> trout. It's cheaper by the pound than those "bottom-feeder-fillets"
> anyway.

Life is full of choices. I'm not picky, here in Louisiana we eat
anything that crawls out of a ditch. Bottom feeders are halibut,
flounder, sole, eel, ling cod, haddock, bass, grouper, snapper, catfish,
shark, crabs and crawfish. Since all of these are mighty tasty, I will
keep eating them.


Becca

Becca wrote on Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:29:26 -0500:

> Interesting article, thanks for posting it.

> Becca


It was interesting and one little bit impressed me:
__________________
Pangasius also benefited from American catfish’s vulnerability to
something called “off-flavor.” Off-flavor happens when blue-green algae
predominate in stagnant freshwater and emit geosim — a harmless,
muddy-tasting compound that passes easily into fish flesh. Since U.S.
environmental regulations limit the amount of water that can be
discharged, algal blooms are common, and catfish occasionally get that
geosim taste.
------------------------------

So that's what the muddy taste of catfish is caused by! I've never had
catfish without the muddy taste and I suspect that people's tastes are
not as sensitive as they might be :-). That would explain how stores,
even Fresh Fields, can get away with what they call "fresh" fish.
--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not

On Oct 12, 12:15*am, "Gregory Morrow" > wrote:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/ma...atfish-t.html?
>
> October 12, 2008
>
> NYT "Magazine": The Food Issue
>
> A Catfish by Any Other Name
>
> By PAUL GREENBERG
>
> "RECENTLY I MET Roger Barlow, the president of the Catfish Institute in
> Jackson, Miss., for a catfish lunch. Plates of blackened catfish Caesar

Speaking of Asian fish .... http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,435061,00.html

N.

On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:48:41 GMT, blake murphy
> wrote:

>On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:01:24 -0700, sf wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:21:13 GMT, Wayne Boatwright
>> > wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>I'm by far not the only one. There seem to be more posters here that fail to
>>>trim than those that do, and those that do often trim in such a way that you
>>>tell who said what.
>>>
>>
>> Which is only one more reason why I hate bottom posting. Most people
>> have no idea how to tell who said what in a long thread and just
>> strip. If the culture here was to top post, then the correct
>> attributions would stay with comments and nobody would need to
>> complain.
>
>that some people fail to trim properly is not a justification for
>top-posting.
>

I'm not justifying anything. Bottom posting sucks because
attributions don't stay with the message body.


--
I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number of carats in a diamond.

Mae West

sf wrote:

> On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:48:41 GMT, blake murphy
> > wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:01:24 -0700, sf wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:21:13 GMT, Wayne Boatwright
>>> > wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>I'm by far not the only one. There seem to be more posters here that fail to
>>>>trim than those that do, and those that do often trim in such a way that you
>>>>tell who said what.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Which is only one more reason why I hate bottom posting. Most people
>>> have no idea how to tell who said what in a long thread and just
>>> strip. If the culture here was to top post, then the correct
>>> attributions would stay with comments and nobody would need to
>>> complain.
>>
>>that some people fail to trim properly is not a justification for
>>top-posting.
>>
>
> I'm not justifying anything. Bottom posting sucks because
> attributions don't stay with the message body.

The do unless someone or someone's software ****s them up. Can't blame
inter- or bottom-posting for that.



--
Blinky
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project: http://improve-usenet.org
Need a new news feed? http://blinkynet.net/comp/newfeed.html

sf wrote:


> I'm not justifying anything. Bottom posting sucks because
> attributions don't stay with the message body.

More bullshit and lies from you on the subject.



Brian


--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)

On 13 Oct 2008 23:51:10 GMT, "Default User" >
wrote:

>sf wrote:
>
>
>> I'm not justifying anything. Bottom posting sucks because
>> attributions don't stay with the message body.
>
>More bullshit and lies from you on the subject.
>

Whatever dood.


--
I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number of carats in a diamond.

Mae West

On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:02:27 -0700, Blinky the Shark
> wrote:

>sf wrote:
>
>>
>> I'm not justifying anything. Bottom posting sucks because
>> attributions don't stay with the message body.
>
>The do unless someone or someone's software ****s them up. Can't blame
>inter- or bottom-posting for that.

OK, show me one example here in rfc, including anything from you,
where the identification stays with the text in a multi quote post.
At least with consistent top posting that can happen. Bottom posting
sucks.


--
I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number of carats in a diamond.

Mae West