# Coelacanth Salad **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [February 2, 2000, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682 "2000-02-02T19:36:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/1 "2000-02-03T06:54:00Z")
So. What does prehistoric deepwater seafish TASTE like? Since it’s from the ocean, it shouldn’t have a terribly oily flesh. But damn, coelacanths LOOK oily, don’t they? Does one roast coelacanth? Filet and grill it? Stuff it whole? Tartar sauce or cocktail sauce? Sorry not to post a link, but this is in reference to the new column (not yet onsite), which appeared in yesterday’s NEW YORK PRESS, mentioning scientists who found a coelacanth for sale by the pound in a tropical fish market. “Check your next tuna melt,” Cecil wrote, provoking a wide grin and appreciative chuckle from Your Correspondent. * * * Uke ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2000, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/2 "2000-02-02T19:36:00Z")
The coelacanth is a member of the crossopterygian group of fish that were the ancestors of the amphibians. So maybe they taste something like frog (which I hear is similar to chicken). A coelacanth fillet might go well with some thawed out mastodon. Prehistoric surf and turf. * * * Elmer J. Fudd, Millionaire. I own a mansion and a yacht. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2000, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/3 "2000-02-02T20:19:00Z")
Elmer!!! You **know** better than to turn this into an evolution v. creation thread!!! 😮 ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2000, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/4 "2000-02-02T23:07:00Z")
It’s actually a little-know fact that word coulibiac (from the Russian kulibiac) has its origins in coelacanth (kulibiac = coleacanth baked), and is one of the few dishes that were enjoyed by prehistoric man. Uke, I believe you have a recipe for that? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2000, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/5 "2000-02-05T02:05:00Z")
Properly prepared, coelacanth tastes much like passenger pigeon. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2000, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/6 "2000-02-07T15:31:00Z")
Ahhhhhhhhh…I see the column finally made it onto the board. [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000204.html](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000204.html) NOW for some dignified and serious discussion of coelacanth cookery. * * * Uke ---
**Author:** ![Vestal\_Blue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/5e9695/32.png) [@Vestal\_Blue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vestal_Blue)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2000, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/7 "2000-02-08T06:14:00Z")
No recipe, but in reference to Cecils’ answer, I once saw a Coelecanth in a pet store in San Antonio in 1976; A rather ugly specimen with lobed fins and heavy scales. * * * VB I could never eat a mouse raw…their little feet are probably real cold going down. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2000, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/8 "2000-02-07T20:07:00Z")
A couple of years ago, one of the scientific exploration programs on TLC or Discovery featured amazing film of living coelacanths taken by the research submersible Jago. As I recall, they were swimming vertically alongside an underwater cliff. They were coming up to feed at night several hundered feet below the surface from their customary daytime level of 600 feet or so. It was truly amazing. More info available at [http://www.dinofish.com/.](http://www.dinofish.com/.) By the way, the “fossil fish” shows up on South African gold coins and on stamps of South Africa, Madagascar and others. * * * The proof that man is the noblest of all creatures is that no other creature has ever denied it.—G.C. Lichtenberg ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2000, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/9 "2000-02-07T23:27:00Z")
I’m glad Cecil made fun of the “more than ten thousand years ago” line in that dumb commercial. It always grates on me when I hear it. It’s like old episodes of _The Twilight Zone_ or _The Outer Limits_, where some character or another would refer to another planet or star being “more than a million miles” from Earth. That “Dino Fish” site is cool. * * * \>\< DARWIN \> \_\_ **L\_\_\_L** ---
**Author:** ![JillGat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc29f/32.png) [@JillGat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JillGat)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2000, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/10 "2000-02-08T06:25:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Vestal Blue: > No recipe, but in reference to Cecils’ answer, I once saw a Coelecanth in a pet store in San Antonio in 1976; A rather ugly specimen with lobed fins and heavy scales. This can’t be true. Are you sure you’re not thinking of those big brown bottom feeder catfishes? Help me out here… has a C and a Y in it… ---
**Author:** ![aschrott](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/aca169/32.png) [@aschrott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aschrott)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2000, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/11 "2000-02-08T14:20:00Z")
Personally, I hate the VW commercial because it feels the need to explain the joke. It would be a charming spot if they just left the Coelecanth reference out there for those of us (and I thought that would be most people) who have heard of it ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2000, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/12 "2000-02-08T16:09:00Z")
The problem with that is there would be too many people calling VW asking why their VW didn’t come with the coelecanth, as advertised. “I don’t care what it is, I want mine. Your commercial said I’d get one. Right next to the full-sized spare tire.” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2000, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/13 "2000-02-08T16:55:00Z")
Re the “over ten thousand years ago” thing: Maybe the scriptwriter didn’t screw up. Maybe he or she figured that a layperson, like the mechanic in the commercial, would have only a vague recollection of the coelacanth story from a brief television news segment about its discovery. For someone other than a scientist (and maybe then only a marine biologist), it’s not only to be expected but probably SUFFICIENT for daily living that they’d remember the story as “sea creature called a cee-la-canth, thought to be extinct for umpety-umpth years, found alive off Madagascar” rather than committing all the details to memory. (Economy of effort, saving memory space, and all that. See the passage in one of the Sherlock Holmes stories where Holmes says that he keeps only the useful information in his head and has books to refer to for the rest if and when he needs it.) So maybe the scriptwriter, or the ad agency, or whoever, thought that it would sound more credible for a mechanic to say “over ten thousand years ago,” and a lot LESS credible for him to come up with the correct “65 million years ago”. ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2000, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/14 "2000-02-08T23:21:00Z")
I emailed the guy who runs [Dinofish.com](http://Dinofish.com), telling him Cecil had supplied a link, and he replied and said he appreciated it. * * * \>\< DARWIN \> \_\_ **L\_\_\_L** ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2000, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/15 "2000-02-15T00:21:00Z")
People who can find links when Yahoo and such can’t: Can anyone find some background on a couple-of-years-old memory of reading that (a) coelacanths were becoming rare in the Comoro-Madagascar area where they had been discovered back in 1938 and (b) another area where they lived had been found somewhere in the seas off the Indonesian islands? ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2000, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/16 "2000-02-16T01:43:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Polycarp: > **(a)coelacanths were becoming rare in the Comoro-Madagascar area where they had been discovered back in 1938 and (b) another area where they lived had been found somewhere in the seas off the Indonesian islands?** Er, uh, **Poly** … It’s, uhm, in Cecil’s column: A scientist and his wife were walking through an _Indonesian_ fish market where they saw and photographed a fresh-caught coelacanth. Then Cecil says: > [@](#): > > A year later, another specimen was pulled from _Indonesian_ waters. Cecil then provided a link to [www.dinofish.com](http://www.dinofish.com) At [www.dinofish.com/recenthistory.html](http://www.dinofish.com/recenthistory.html) we see this: > [@](#): > > a new population has been identified (1998) by at least two specimens caught off of North Sulawesi, Indonesia. This statement is followed by the fish-market story Cecil related. (BTW, the scientist in question is Dr. Mark Erdmann.) Further down in that article, we see this: > [@](#): > > The Indonesian fisherman had long called their coelacanth “Rajah Laut” (King of the Sea). In other words, the common fishermen of Indonesia had known about the coelacanth long enough to name the ugly thing. It’s just _scientists_ who didn’t know they lived near Indonesia too. At [www.dinofish.com/conservation.html](http://www.dinofish.com/conservation.html) , we find this: > [@](#): > > there may be only a few hundred living coelacanths left in the Comoros [DINOFISH.com](http://DINOFISH.com) is authored by Jerome Hamlin. Just trying to help. * * * \>\< DARWIN \> \_\_ **L\_\_\_L** ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2000, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/17 "2000-02-16T02:53:00Z")
And to answer something that Uke asked so long ago: Coelacanths are damn oily. They keep themselves neutrally bouyant by building up a store of oils and fats in their bodies rather than use a gas-filled swin bladder. Biochemically, they seem more similar to sharks than to ray-finned fish. ## It seems to me that the discovery of the Indonesian population may indicate that they are much more plentiful than we had thought. If anyone can procure the funding, I will volunteer my time to go fishing around steep-sided islands across the entire northern arc of the Indian Ocean… Dr. Fidelius, Charlatan Associate Curator Anomalous Paleontology, Miskatonic University “You cannot reason a man out of a position he did not reach through reason.” ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2000, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/18 "2000-02-16T16:45:00Z")
So, JAB, you’re saying I should RTFM first? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![mr\_john](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@mr\_john](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr_john)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2000, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/19 "2000-02-16T21:26:00Z")
Ok now this coelacanth thing is one hot topic. We got this thread here and this one [http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000479.html](http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000479.html) there, and this one [http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000488.html](http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000488.html) over there. I asked how it might taste in one of those. I knew somebody would say "sorta like chicken’, everything tastes like chicken. But what does chicken taste like? Supose you never had chicken or any fowl, then you ate some what would you compare it too? Alligator? Or like a plecostemus, that’s the ugly sucker aquarium fish, Jill, tho I don’t think I spelled it right. * * * “Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2000, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682/20 "2000-02-16T23:37:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Polycarp: > **So, JAB, you’re saying I should RTFM first? 🙂** Yeah, but I was trying to be polite about it. You caught my Constitutional error over in the “Homophobic Bigots” thread in the Pit and I thought I’d return the favor. * * * \>\< DARWIN \> \_\_ **L\_\_\_L** [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coelacanth-salad/682.md?page=2)