Catfish…once from the drain?

Asian catfish, ikan keli

Ikan Keli or catfish, one that is not truly attractive and the Chinese once called it, ‘the fish from the drain’. This slimy scaleless fish began to be a part of the Chinese restaurant menu somewhere in the late 80s. During that time, the demand for catfish shot up due to economic downturn and those eating out couldn’t really afford the pricy prawns or crabs and therefore opted for catfish as the cheapest form affordable for the plate.

Clarias macrocephalus, the freshwater walking catfish was very common in Malaysian market in small towns and villages. Mostly trapped in padi fields and sold in the market at a very low price. This specie has a slightly larger head length than the other specie Clarias batrachus which is the common one in Thailand.

Due to a very high price for a plate of cooked prawn, the demand for catfish in the restaurant prompted us to breed more catfish instaed of udang, the giant freshwater prawn. That was the year 1989 when I was still a farmer.

Breeding catfish is not for anyone. Catching them with bare hands can be a very painful experience at times. Accidental jabs followed by excruciating pain from the catfish spiky spine while handling this fish can truly make a devil out of you. Artificial breeding requires some hormonal injection to the female fish and later, stripping them out for thousand of eggs is nothing attractive but mainly for the purpose of production and profitability. Not very nice.

Later when there was a limitation to production of local catfish, one easy to breed and fast growing specie was brought into Malaysia, the Clarias gariepinus from Africa. This specie is fast growing and gigantic if compared to the local ikan keli. Once cooked and tasted, I can assured you that even hell broke loose, will never ever eaten this fish again.

Today, I still have Clarias macrocephalus on my plate cooked with chilly paste and fried hot and deep enough to give you a heart attack. Once the so-called fish from the drain is actually a good source of  protein for the diet particularly those from the wild rather than from the farm. Beware to choose smaller and slimmer ones and not the fat and fleshy one when you are going for a catfish dinner party.

Catfishes are not recommended for garden ponds or even in recreational lake. Maybe they are meant to be in the drain.