Well, to tell you the truth, I would surmise that it has as much to do with the pride doing it yourself as anything. Maybe they don’t trust farm-raised fish or something. Agree on the salmon.
Carp: Esteemed in Europe, Loather in USA-Why?
I used to walk around in loathers, but switched to can’t standals. For formal wear, nothing beats obnoxfords.
If you esteem them long enough, it takes care of the muddy taste.
One hot day last summer, a young Vietmanese co-worker of my husband’s brought her kids over and we decided to take them for a walk by a lake. It was hot, humid, and still, and the carp were jumping out of the water, (snapping at flies, I think). I was astounded to see this snooty, rich, elegant woman take off like a shot in her high heels, running down to the rocks by the water, to get a better look! She sat there for 15 minutes watching for carp to jump. Her English wasn’t very good, but I got the impression she…loved carp.
I hate them. They taste carppy.
I love catfish, but I’ve found the carp I’ve caught to be inedible.
I have eaten good carp at a restaurant called the Camp Rulo River Club, in Rulo Nebraska. It’s really worth a stop if you are ever in southeast Nebraska. Cool place; it sits right on the edge of the Missouri river. Their catfish is better though.
Christmas food traditions have little to do with taste or culinary sensations. The traditional Scandi christmas special lutefisk, lipeäkala or lye fish looks, smells and tastes like day-old cum (chemically much the same, I think). Doesn’t prevent it from being a Christmas classic.
It’s common knowledge here that pike, for instance, are best eaten when small, while the big ones are woody and tasteless. Might well apply to carp, catfish et al.
Re: freshwater fish. I have eaten quite a few species, but never carp:
-walleyed pike: very good, no muddy taste,delicate flavor
-northern pike: see above
-tilapia (farm raised): ranges from nutty flavor to muddy. OK if deep fried in batter
-salmon (wild) Copper River-the best!
-salmon (farmed) good
-trout (wild), excellent flavor
-trout (farmed) very good, not as flavorful as wild
-artic char: great, comparable to wild rainbow trou
-catfish(farmed): oK, sometimes has a muddy flavor
Guy Fieri did one of his Diners, Drive ins and Dives shows from a restaurant here called Joe Tess. The specialize in fried carp. It is nasty tasting. The place has a pretty devoted following, but I can’t even abide the odor of the place much less the awful tasting fish they sell.
Before she met me, and even before she was legal, my wife got several marriage proposals (“I’ll wait,” said one swain) for how she cooks crappie. CRAPPIE! The very name, if mispronounced (the “A” is pronounced as “ah”), is the very description of trash fish! But she would not waste her time with a carp.
Okay, yeah, panfish like the crappie earned that name not just because of their size, but also their flavor. I avoid freshwater fish because they are bland, but won’t turn down a nice bluegill.
That might be a regional thing. I’ve heard both “CRAP-ee” and “CROP-ee.” I personally pronounce it “CRAP-ee.”
I say CRAP-ee too, but I can see why people who sell & prepare it would like it to be CRAW-pee. Sorta like how people say planet YOOR-ahnus instead of well, you know. 
Another issue with carp…besides tasting like mud, it’s a very bony fish.
That’s the only way I’ll eat carp, fresh caught and smoked. We also remove that layer of dark meat before smoking, which helps.
I grew up and currently live on a small lake, so I was raised on crappies, sunfish, northern pike, perch, and the occasional bass, catfish, or carp. I’m a total fish snob - if it isn’t jumping out of the pan I won’t eat it. Muddiness is what keeps me from eating non-smoked carp or wild duck/goose for that matter.
I’m a little mystified by trash-talking crappies (FTR, crop-ee for us). They’re a firm, white-fleshed fish, just small. The flavor is pretty delicate, but nothing fishy or nasty.
I’ve a Czech friend who says that they buy their Christmas carp live, and keep it in the bath for a few days. It’s supposed to crap out the less pleasant stuff it’s been eating, but I think my friend still doesn’t recommend it.
I eat pond-raised carp every week. It’s especially good with “red beer”.
There’s a carp restaurant in South Omaha called Joe Tess’ Place that’s got a large local following. It was recently featured on the Food Channel.
The thing is, the Carp as food tradition in Europe, and China for that matter, probably stems from their abundance, wide habitat, size, and heartieness as a species. They were easy fish to catch and a large one can feed several people- Another advantage was that every poor bastard, undertrodden, serf could catch one by hand or spear them in a ditch or pond. I’m sure every person, family, or group had their own method for preperation… but I do know that perhaps the strong flavors of Chinese cooking might make Carp edible. Never tried it fried, but you people all make it sound so horrible… I’m sure some salting or marination could handle the worst of it and make it palatable. Or Hell, smoke it and sell it as a delicacy fo several dollars a pound. It’s a very nice flaky white delicate smoked fish… not too oily or exceptionally strong.
I think it was also popular in Eastern Europe because it is a Kosher fish, as well. It might be one of the few Kosher freshwater fish in any given landlocked area for some geographies.
But that’s a question I’ve always wanted to ask, it seems like a a lot of these scaled kosher fishes often seem like the most dangerous bottom feeding high mercury fishes. Will keeping a Kosher diet raise your mercury levels?
I was really confused by the idea that crappies taste bad, yet sunnies/bluegills taste good. The difference between the three is minimal. Crappie is as good as walleye in my mind.
Northerns, like a lot of fish, taste better when smaller. Also less likely to have issues with parasites.
3# walleye, good- 8# walleye, not as good.
Oddly enough, I immediately thought of this thread when I was doing some channel surfing Sunday night and came across a short nature documentaryabout Malheur Lake in southeastern Oregon. During the 20’s, some carp got loose, reproduced in large numbers, and stripped the lake of most of its vegetation. As a result, the once-extensive population of waterfowl at the lake decreased drastically. Efforts at carp control have been of spotty success at best. They once tried to poison all the carp during the 50’s but enough survived to repopulate the lake again. It’s too bad the carp don’t have predators in this country … unless people somehow develop a taste for them.
Perhaps it just needs some effective marketing. After all, nobody wanted to eat anything named a Patagonian Tooth-fish but just change it to Chilean Sea Bass and viola’! It becomes so popular it’s almost fished out of existence. Maybe that’s the solution to the problems faced by Malheur Lake and other carp-plagued bodies of water.