Posted on 12/31/2010 11:10:13 AM PST by decimon
MIAMI (Reuters) – Florida marine conservationists have come up with a simple recipe for fighting the invading lionfish that is gobbling up local reef life -- eat them.
The Key Largo-based REEF conservation organization has just released "The Lionfish Cookbook," a collection of 45 recipes which is the group's latest strategy to counter an invasion of the non-native reddish brown-striped fish in Florida waters.
"It's absolutely good eating -- a delicacy. It's delicately flavored white meat, very buttery," Lad Akins, director of special projects for Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF), told Reuters. He authored the cookbook along with a professional chef, Tricia Ferguson.
Red lionfish, a prickly predator armed with flaring venomous spines like a lion's mane that give them their name, are native to the South Pacific, Indian Ocean and Red Sea.
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Unlike the toxic Fugu pufferfish or blowfish, which is an expensive delicacy in Japan but requires careful expert preparation to avoid potentially fatal poisoning, Akins says lionfish meat is safe to eat and contains no venom.
"The venom is only in the spines. Cooking the fish would denature the venom, even if you left the spines on. It's simple enough just to cut the spines off," he said.
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(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Yeah well , I never was too PC.
The sculpin is the first fish I caught on my own, in Ensenada Mexico on the San Miguel Village jetty early in the morning Thanksgiving Day in 1966.
I got stung by one in 1971 at Divers Cove in Laguna Beach CA. I had speared it. I ate it that night. It was delicious.
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