Thread: Barra

Originally Posted by numpty

A lot of the Barra sold, is imported fish from SE Asian countries.

Yes, but apparently sales still outstrips supply...

Makes you wonder what people are actually paying for

Certainly agree with that Tombie.....just because it says Barra on the menu doesn't mean it is Barra on the plate. That goes for a lot of other types of fish also. There have been a number of kick-ups regards this issue over the years.

Cheers
Mick

I'm not denying the likely substitution of species that takes place, but barra are a favoured aquaculture fish in many parts of Australia and the farmed fish are sold through many retail outlets. I would expect the numbers caught annually figures would be for wild fish, not farmed.

I doubt farmed fish need to reach the minimum length for keeping wild fish, which makes them a better size for restaurant meals.

Edit: Wild salt water barra taste a lot better than impoundment or farmed fish. Farmed fish are better if transferred to clean water tanks to clean out before being processed, but not all farms go to that expense.

A lot of the "Barra" sold in food outlets is Nile Perch. There is apparently only a couple of chromosomes difference between the 2 fish and as the Nile perch comes in boxes of frozen fillets there is no way of telling the 2 apart. The only way is to make sure that you get a whole fish and these are usually farmed aquaculture fish with little flavour. The Nile perch regularly grows to over the old 100 pound mark so one fish provides a hell of a lot of edible fillets thereby keeping the cost of supply down.