reLAKSation 379 Callander McDowell
Christmas Homage: An editorial in a recent issue of Fish Farming International pondered the problematic image of carp. The editor, Velo Mitrovich recounts how he grew up with a family aversion to carp. He relates how when in a good mood, his father would describe carp as a muddy-tasting, mushy-textured bottom sucker. He says that it is not surprising that he was always reluctant to try carp. This changed on a trip to Hong Kong and China where he says that they take their carp seriously. However, when he sat down and saw Braised ‘crap’ on the menu his former distaste came flooding back even though he knew it was just a typographical error.
Whilst visiting this year’s European Aquaculture Society conference in Poland, he started warming to the idea of trying Poland’s national dish, yet restaurant after restaurant failed to come up with a single portion. Eventually, he was given a meal of carp at the conference dinner and he writes that he cannot lie. He says that his father’s view of carp was not too far off the mark! He was told that he should come back to Poland at Christmas as the fish would be much tastier then (more about this later).
This is a real shame for farmed carp, when it’s good, is a really tasty fish that makes excellent eating. It is a very meaty fish and is often compared to veal. We, in the aquaculture industry, should not only recognise the attributes of this fish but also pay it homage for carp were being farmed long before any thought was given to all the species farmed in the world today. Carp are the original farmed fish.
Although the first attempts at aquaculture are thought to have been as long ago as 2800 BCE, the first record of carp comes from a treatise written by ‘Fan Li’ in China in 475 BCE. However, the spread of carp farming in the west is better attributed to knowledge gathered during the Roman Empire and then developed and spread with early Christianity.
There is no doubt that fish farming (as distinct from the storage of caught river fish in man made ponds) proliferated throughout Europe with the spread of the great monastic houses. Yet, whilst many authors suggest this spread extended as far as Britain, this was not the case. Carp were deliberately brought to Britain to enhance the status of privately run fishponds and it was not until just prior to the dissolutionment of the monasteries by King Henry the Eight that the monastic houses managed to obtain the highly valued carp.
Fish or stew ponds (from the old French word estui meaning to store) were highly valued during Medieval times. This can be seen from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in which Frankeleyn boasts amongst other things that he has ‘many a bream and many a luce (pike) in a stewe’. Fish ponds were very much seen as a status symbol of the time and any way to boost their image and value would be highly desirable. Certainly, growing fish in the ponds rather than using them just for storage would be perceived as a major jump up in status.
Bringing carp across from mainland Europe may not have been so difficult. Carp are extremely hardy fish and historians believe that they were wrapped up in damp moss and placed in baskets and brought in on horseback. The main question is when this happened.
The first ever known reference to carp in Britain occurs in royal kitchen accounts at the end of the fourteenth century, however there is no mention of where the fish originated. The first dated reference to carp in ponds is from September 1465 when Sir John Howard presented friends with fish from his greatest pond which he described as ‘carps for store’.
It seems that carp were still a novelty at this time. Even by 1496, Dame Juliana Berners, an abbess at St Albans noted that ‘the carpe is a deyntous fish: but there ben but fewe in Englande. And therefore I wryte less of hym.’
Yet, it took even longer for carp to reach the church. Prior More, Prior of Worcester between 1518 and 1536 kept a record of all the movements in the priory’s fishponds, especially of eels and tench. In was not until 1531 that Prior More received his first batch of carp which he kept as a form of experiment.
The Monasteries experiments with carp did not last long. In a letter dated 2nd January 1538 from John Craiford, one of the Kings Commissioners to the newly created Earl of Southampton, Thomas Wrothesley, who had acquired the ponds of Titchfield Abbey ‘ … the bailey will give Wrothesley 500 carps to stock the ponds, Mr Huttoft providing the freight, Mr Mylls, the tubs and Mr Wells conveyance of the carps, so that in 3 or 4 years he may sell 20s- 30s (shillings) worth of them every year.’
Following the dissolution and release of ponds into private ownership, the early attempts at carp farming were refined so much that by 1600, John Taverner chronicled the methods in a book entitled ‘Certaine experiments concerning fish and fruite’. Most of the practices that Mr Taverner detailed are still relevant to modern extensive carp farming.
The difficulties of transporting sea fish from the coast meant that freshwater species such as carp were the main source of fish protein for much of the British population. However the onset of the Industrial Revolution with the improvements in fishing and transportation meant that seafish such as cod found their way into most inland towns. The plentiful and regular supply of these fish sounded the death knell for freshwater fish consumption in the British Isles, a taste which has been lost for ever.
Yet, carp can still be bought in British fishmongers, especially those in major towns. This is because of the great influx of Eastern Europeans, especially from Poland and the Baltic States who wish to continue their tradition of eating carp at Christmas and New Year. Unfortunately, the carp sold to these consumers is not grown in Britain but imported from farms in France. This Christmas, carp is selling from between £5/kg (half price in Tesco’s) to £8.99/kg in Waitrose.
The main reason why carp is traditional at this time of the year is that European extensive carp production is tied to the seasons so that it is impossible to harvest fish on a continuous year round basis. Carp farming has more in common with arable farming than any other type of farming, whether fish or animal. When the fish are harvested at the end of the year, the pond is emptied and left so that the pond bottom is open to the elements. The pond bottom is often tilled and spread with animal manures that rot down to release their nutrients. Come the spring, the pond is refilled and the water flow stopped so that the pond-water can warm up as the air temperature rises. This promotes the growth of phyto-plankton and then zoo-plankton including protein rich organisms such as daphnia. When the water is rich in this nutrient source, small fish, over-wintered in deeper holding ponds are introduced. Growth is promoted by the natural food and the warming temperatures. Extra supplementary feeding in the form of farm waste is often added to ensure maximum protein conversion throughout the summer and manures are left to rot around the edge of the ponds providing a slow release of further nutrients.
Growth begins to slow down as the summer progresses from summer to autumn and then into winter. Extra food is reduced and the natural food becomes depleted. Eventually, the pond is ready for harvest and the pond water let out. As the level declines, the fish are caught and transferred into holding bins which have a constant stream of fresh water. This running water washes the muddy taste from the flesh so that after a couple of days the real taste of these fish shines through.
Having harvested a whole pond, the farmer needs an instant market for all his fish and this is why the tradition of the Christmas and New Year fish has developed. This never happened in Britain which is another reason why carp lost its popularity.
Of course, carp grown or held in smaller ponds can be caught on a regular basis providing a year round crop, which is probably more the way that carp were reared in Britain.
Carp farming did make a revival in Britain in the 1970/80s when one farm was established to supply émigrés from the Second World War with their Christmas fish but this was taken over by a bakery and developed into a successful operation to supply other ethnic groups. The business failed in the wake of the miner’s strike (it’s a long story) and Government officialdom.
According to the Daily Telegraph, a new attempt at reintroducing carp farming to the UK is underway through the attempts of Jimmie Hepburn, a former salmon farmer who hopes to transform a former trout farm into a successful carp business. He hopes to persuade Britain’s two million garden pond owners to grow fish for their table as a sustainable option. We suspect that as the major supermarkets are having difficulty persuading most consumers to move away from cod and salmon, that this will be a definite uphill struggle.
Yet there is an untapped market for carp in this country besides that serving the Eastern European Christmas demand. The problem is that market cannot be served by a commercial carp farm. The mechanics and economics just make it impossible. Instead, what is required is a network of agriculture farmers who have some land that they can convert into ponds and through a market co-operative be able to supply fresh carp on a year round basis.
Sadly, a recent project to investigate the use of waste agricultural land for aquaculture ignored this opportunity preferring instead to focus on the possibilities of growing tilapia, a fish that requires year round warm water just to survive. This is never going to be a viable proposal, especially as there is little demand for tilapia in the UK but then little consideration was given to the market.
Carp may not be farmed in the UK anymore but they are still the most farmed fish in the world today with China being the most significant producer. Seafood International put the total global production of the common carp at about 3.1 million tonnes in 2004 with another 13.8 million tonnes coming from other varieties of carp.
Carp is no doubt the most significant farmed fish in the world today and that with the longest history. If it were not for carp, then it is unlikely that we would have a fish farming industry. We should pay homage to this very special fish.