Basa: I give the cat 60g/day of pollock. One day, the shop had none, so I bought basa. Neither cat would touch it. Put me right off, as did an account of the hygeine standards of the producers... I hope it was slanderous, but I still don't fancy basa, especially as I had tried it before the feline opinion was sought. It hasn't got much going for it.
Has Geosmin been mentioned yet? In his book "The Longshoreman", (wonderful enough to have been a Radio 4 "Book of the Week") Richard Shelton explains that this substance gives many freshwater fish a bitter and muddy taste, and (bless him) gives the cure - marinate the fish in lemon juice or vinegar solution overnight; the acidity breaks it down.
If I were forced to eat freshwater fish, I'd give them the gravlax treatment (it works brilliantly on trout, I've tried) - fillet and skin the fish, coat and cover with a mixture of sugar and salt, flavoured with dill and/or juniper berries, in a dish, put a weight on top to help squeeze out the water, put in the fridge and turn them over daily. If you're going to keep them a while, drain and re-cover after day 1. Slice, wrap, freeze. They become so concentrated that they stay flexible in the freezer. Delish!
Somewhere , I have a book called "First, catch the fish" or similar, full of coarse fish recipes. I don't know if it's a warning of what happens when too many people try to harvest a finite resource, or just an expression of the vagaries of angling in general, but the last recipe is what do do if all you could catch was minnows.
It's title?
"Consolation Soup".
