# What did I see in the Asian food market? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 24, 2005, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-asian-food-market/309655 "2005-06-24T10:51:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2005, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-asian-food-market/309655/21 "2005-06-25T05:08:11Z")
Could they have been [Snakehead Fish](http://images.google.com/images?q=snakehead+fish&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=ii&oi=imagest) ? Some have escaped in New York, I believe. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2005, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-asian-food-market/309655/22 "2005-06-25T05:20:54Z")
Mmm… Monkfish… Raw monkfish liver is a delicacy, some say it’s better than foie gras. And IMHO the only soup better than monkfish soup (cooked with sake and miso) is spiny lobster soup. It’s a very difficult fish to prepare though, you can’t fillet it like regular fish. In Japan it’s usually sold already prepared and ready to cook. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2005, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-asian-food-market/309655/23 "2005-06-25T09:53:56Z")
> [@DarkSideoftheFloyd](#): > > Out of curiosity, which store did you see this in? Was it on Main Street, Union, or Roosevelt? Or one of the streets off Main? It was in the supermarket kind of one, on the corner directly opposite from the main entrance to the botanic gardens, on Main Street and (I think) Elder. Basically, it’s the southernmost of the food stores north of Kissena Corridor Park. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2005, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-asian-food-market/309655/24 "2005-06-25T09:59:50Z")
Definitely not a mudpuppy nor a snakehead fish, both of which are far too slim to qualify as “lumpy.” ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2005, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-asian-food-market/309655/25 "2005-06-25T22:32:54Z")
Re Monkfish I thought they were much bigger. OTTOMH, a Malcolm In The Middle episode shows Reese stuffing a turkey and then stuffing a monkish with the turkey. Re Mudskippers I can certainly see gourmets importing them. There are plenty of precedents. Hmm, perhaps they are not food. These animals, or some part of them or a substance they produce, may be the ingredient needed for a chi spell. Try standing near the container and repeating “Oo mo gwai gwai fi nee sao” and see if anything happens. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2005, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-asian-food-market/309655/26 "2005-06-25T22:49:48Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Re Monkfish > > I thought they were much bigger. OTTOMH, a Malcolm In The Middle episode shows Reese stuffing a turkey and then stuffing a monkish with the turkey. That would be the major objection that I would see to monkfish - they would, I think, usually be larger than a large frog. On the other hand, they would certainly be the mostly commonly sold fish of that general appearance. But perhaps it could be some other kind of anglerfish. ---
**Author:** ![RM\_Mentock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-asian-food-market/309655/27 "2005-06-26T15:46:46Z")
I’ve been around the SDMB for a long time, and I’ve never experienced a _frisson_ like when I realized we were using Malcolm in the Middle to argue a point of zoology: monkfish are big fish ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-asian-food-market/309655/28 "2005-06-26T23:58:36Z")
**RM Mentock** I wasn’t using it as a cite. I just had a lot of windows open at the time, my cpu was running slower than usual and I didn’t want to open a window to search and more windows for results. ---
**Author:** ![Grossbottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ba8739/32.png) [@Grossbottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grossbottom)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2005, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-asian-food-market/309655/29 "2005-06-27T00:26:38Z")
I’ll confirm the presence of wild mudskippers living in South Florida. At least they used to, in decent sized groups no less. The entire geographical area is honeycombed with a canal system system that I believe was built by the Army Corps of Engineers decades ago. I grew up on one of the larger canals, and used to catch skippers all the time with my little pole. They dig bologna. I never saw one climb out of the water, they seemed to stay beneath the surface fulltime. This was…20 years ago? But only people that don’t know any better would eat out of a canal though, no matter what it was you caught. Ick. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2005, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-asian-food-market/309655/30 "2005-06-27T00:40:16Z")
There are a number of temperate coatal fish that have a froglike appearance; not sure which of these might be native to your area, but they typically look like the [Blenny/Shanny](http://web.ukonline.co.uk/aquarium/pages/shanny.html). ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2005, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-asian-food-market/309655/31 "2005-06-27T01:15:45Z")
> [@Grossbottom](#): > > They dig bologna. I never saw one climb out of the water, they seemed to stay beneath the surface fulltime. This was…20 years ago? I’m certain these would not have been mudskippers. Mudskippers spend most of their time on the mudflats. If they were always below the surface, they were not mudskippers. (I also doubt they would go for bologna.) I’m fairly familiar with the literature on introduced species, and if something as bizarre and exotic as mudskippers had become established in south Florida 20 years ago to the extent you found them common, I’m certain I would have heard of it. As **Mangetout** says, there are a number of native fish that have a somewhat froglike appearance. ---
**Author:** ![RM\_Mentock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2005, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-asian-food-market/309655/32 "2005-06-27T05:16:45Z")
no, no, **DocCathode** , it wasn’t a _bad_ thing [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-i-see-in-the-asian-food-market/309655.md?page=1)