To be fair, carp doesn't really come from the sea. Most often they come from ponds, like this one, dubbed a "Medieval fishing pond," showing how long this brand of food production has been going on. Today, on a drive from South Bohemia to South Moravia, we stopped in to the carp capital of the Czech Republic, Trebon.
Fish consumption still holds
no candle to pork here. Obviously. But apparently carp is a big Christmas Eve delicacy and all of it comes from Trebon. It's particularly amusing to me, because carp has always felt like a pork-like fish (if there is such a thing). It has white meat and dark meat and a skin that easily thickens up into a crunchy rind, complete with a scrumptious layer of fat clinging to the bottom of the crust.
The restaurant we lunched at was brimming with locals and had a menu which featured carp in multiple preparations. One of the items was "carp fries," whose Czech name translated more closely to "carp chips," and which I can assume was a fish version of pork rinds. All of the dishes came on fish shaped plates. Merlin's "Trebon-style carp cubes" swam in a sweet citrus-y sauce.
Mine was much more straight forward. Had it been meat, it would have been called "ribs" or maybe "breast" of carp. It was broiled to perfection, crunchy outside and fall-apart moist inside. Carp - the Czech Republic's other, other white meat.
To be fair, carp doesn't really come from the sea. Most often they come from ponds, like this one, dubbed a "Medieval fishing pond," showing how long this brand of food production has been going on. Today, on a drive from South Bohemia to South Moravia, we stopped in to the carp capital of the Czech Republic, Trebon.
Fish consumption still holds no candle to pork here. Obviously. But apparently carp is a big Christmas Eve delicacy and all of it comes from Trebon. It's particularly amusing to me, because carp has always felt like a pork-like fish (if there is such a thing). It has white meat and dark meat and a skin that easily thickens up into a crunchy rind, complete with a scrumptious layer of fat clinging to the bottom of the crust.
The restaurant we lunched at was brimming with locals and had a menu which featured carp in multiple preparations. One of the items was "carp fries," whose Czech name translated more closely to "carp chips," and which I can assume was a fish version of pork rinds. All of the dishes came on fish shaped plates. Merlin's "Trebon-style carp cubes" swam in a sweet citrus-y sauce.
Mine was much more straight forward. Had it been meat, it would have been called "ribs" or maybe "breast" of carp. It was broiled to perfection, crunchy outside and fall-apart moist inside. Carp - the Czech Republic's other, other white meat.