Catfish taste & texture

[Bobby McGovern]

Years ago I lived on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and ate catfish all the time and loved it.  (Fried of course).  

I moved to South Carolina and purchased some frozen fillets.  They were awful.  They tasted like algae/mud and didn't like the less than firm texture.  Now no one will eat catfish.  I'm thinking maybe trying just a few catfish to see if I can get everyone to try it.  i don't want to devote a year of raising them to find out nobody will touch them.

Have my taste buds changed and all catfish will have that awful taste or maybe I had some poor quality farmed fish??

[Chris Carr]

Frozen means it probably came from China and was of terrible quality. Not to say all fish that comes from China is of bad quality though.

[Sahib Punjabi]

Namaste Bobby,

We will be harvesting a few of our Aquaponically grown channel catfish in late October / early November. If you are in this part of the world, you are welcome to our Farm and try some. So good...Yum! Already have water in my mouth :-)

God bless,

[john tramell]

Bobby  sorry your fish was bad all i can say is come back home to mississippi we still have great catfish but being the catfish captial what would you expect

[TCLynx]

I've never experienced the off or muddy or algae flavor from our aquaponic catfish.

I think one key may be that you have to get from tank to dead/cleaned/cooked or frozen with minimal stress or sitting about.  (as in if the fish take a long time from when they are removed from the pond till they actually get processed by riding around in a truck full of dieing fish with minimal water or air for them they are going to be stressed and those stress chemicals can't be good for the flavor.)

Another key is how the fish was grown and what it ate and the environment it comes from.  In aquaponics I've always kept the water quality high and the fish has always tasted great and had good texture.

We like the catfish better than the tilapia and the catfish are of course less trouble than the bluegill since the catfish get so much bigger.

[George]

Yeah, catfish pack on weight fast, compared to bluegill.  The muddy taste has everything to do with water quality. 

[Bobby McGovern]

Ok, y'all have convinced me to try again!  Can catfish and tilapia be in the tank together?  I'm thinking of starting with some catfish since it's starting to cool off during the night, I haven't moved my system into the garage yet and I haven't decided about the type of heater and grow lights I'll use.

[TCLynx]

catfish and tilapia can be in the same tank together though large hungry catfish might try to eat small tilapia fingerlings or aggressive breeding tilapia might attack a small catfish or other tilapia for that matter.

[George]

About SC catfish, not only does water quality matter but species matters a lot too. Blues and Channel are just much better than Flathead. I don't consider Flatheads to be edible, not if I had anything else to eat, anyhow.  Good luck.  My wife hasn't liked any catfish much heretofore but I hope aquaponic catfish will change her mind.

[TCLynx]

to a large extent, it will be how you cook it that will make the difference.

[George]

If you're talking about cooking techniques making a difference in taste between species, my experience suggests otherwise and I've eaten a lot of catfish from many places.  Try a channel and a flathead from the same water and cook them however you choose.

[TCLynx]

What I'm saying is that channel catfish are so mild that they tend to take on the taste of how you cook them.  If you over cook them they can become tough or dense.