And what do you think the wild shrimp are eating? <to the earlier poster> Not you, Cluricaun.
I remember tilapia early before I saw it offered in restaurants being offered in fish marts as a kind of grass carp.
And I love catfish. They’re nassy bottom feeders too.
Fish tend to have all kinds of different names depending on area and what people are okay with.
The fresher the better is what I’ve found to be true.
I’m glad I’m not the only one to loathe tilapia. I don’t really hate it, it’s just so meh.
The only way I like it is the Trader Joe’s Garlic Chile Tilapia- but I assume that any other white fish would be as good, if not better. I sure wouldn’t pay for it at restaurant!
What disgusts me about them is that they’re usually eight or nine bucks and the rare times I have ordered one, you can’t smell, taste, or feel the liquor the menu claims they contain. For nine bucks I want a fat slug of booze in my orange-pineapple-cherry-whatever.
Wait, you guys are serious about candied baby starfish? Where the hell is this stuff?
[stage whisper] psst… no 
As for a cite, it was an episode of Dirty Jobs. Are there more than one type of tilapia?
Every so often, there’s a post that you know you’ll remember for the rest of your life. This is one of those posts. I laughed out loud for seven minutes.
Take a bow, jjimm, me old china!
I am offended. I am not a “flavorless white mung!”
Anchos are merely dried poblanos. They are not smoked.
Other types of smoked chiles include smoked paprika and moritas.
As someone in the “it tastes like soap” cilantro camp I agree with you - whole sprigs. Because that makes them easier to remove and give to someone who has the ability to like cilantro.
Plus, I’ve heard the same description applied to lobsters, which are apparently heavenly.
There you go - win/win!
(I don’t just like cilantro - I looooove it. Great, now I have “Dreadlock Holiday” in my head.)
You should try it with cilantro and sundried tomatoes on ciabatta bread!
Now mesquite grilled! With our dijon peppercorn ranch dipping sauce!
Not exactly a “food fad”, but prices on menus should have either zero or two digits to the right of the decimal point. $8 is fine, $7.95 is fine. 7.9 is a pretty good review at Pitchfork.
Certainly, tilapia are a type of chiclid, and according to the Wiki link there’s almost 100 species of tilapia.
According to this site:
“As for tilapia, it is not a bottom feeder, but it is a “vegetarian fish who eats algae and plants, and because it is a small fish, there is little buildup of pollutants and toxins,” explains Kyle Shadix, a registered dietitian and chef. “Most tilapia sold in the market is farmed and there are strict controls on production.” Tilapia is a low-mercury fish, so enjoy it.”
Catfish, carp, bigmouth buffalo and suckers are all bottom feeding fish. Tilapia are not.
Here in Florida, I can step out my backdoor and snag Tilapia out of the stocked Lake. Because they are vegans they don’t respond to bait, so you have to cast out a four pronged hook with a sinker and reel and yank, hoping to snag through a school of them. I caught a catfish this way, but have yet to gets me some Tilapia. Guys around here go home with full stringers and have freezers full of them.
Try, “you know, the length of your intestine indicates an omnivorous animal, not an herbivorous one.”
My vegan friends always take that bait, anyway.
Yes, it is embarrassing when they begin hauling out their entrails in public, and asking to see yours.
You don’t say. I was remembering the post of a Hawaiian Doper here who said tilapia inhabited the Ali Wai canal in Honolulu, a body of water notorious for being full of garbage and trash.
All I know is, both times I’ve tried tilapia, it tasted like dirt. Probably it was the algae that they ate. And I don’t particularly care all that much what a food fish eats - I just care how they taste. I know what lobster, crabs and shrimp eat and I love them. But tilapia - ick. Because of its cheapness, however, I’m seeing it everywhere on menus.