... in response to More fish questions???, posted by capt david on Jul 26, 2003Hi capt,
Well, you certainly don’t owe anybody an explanation of why you posted a question here instead of asking your fiancée. Some folks are just jealous I guess (ROFL).
I agree that the names for fish in the Philippines can get very confusing. They have snapper over there, but many different varieties of snapper and some of them are quite colorful. Snapper and Lapulapu are “high-end” fish and are very popular over there, but also relatively expensive.
We have a chain of Filipino-owned supermarkets here in SoCal called Seafood City. They have several dozen varieties of fresh fish laid out on any given day. For the benefit of all their customers, the signs on each variety have both common English and Tagalog names, so that’s how I learned some of the Filipino names. They regularly stock true Red Snapper but that one has no Tagalog name. Most of the Filipinos here just refer to it as Red Snapper. When I asked my wife what they called Red Snapper back home, she thought for a while and said “Baghak”, but here she calls it Snapper. Same with Bonito, Mackerel, Yellowtail, Blue Marlin, and Salmon for example, which don’t seem to have a common Filipino name that I’ve heard of.
If your fiancée grew up on the sea, then she is probably spoiled on fresh fish like my wife is. Her family home is on a large beach-front property and her father is a fisherman and coconut farmer. They have a large private fish trap in the bay, so each morning her dad goes out at about 5 a.m. to check the fish trap. They always have fresh fish and seafood for breakfast, lunch, and usually dinner. The term “fresh fish” has a somewhat different meaning over there, usually meaning that it’s been caught within the past 6-8 hours. The markets usually get fresh fish from the fishing boats in early morning and again in the afternoon. The fish over here have usually been flash frozen on a boat for weeks before they reach the supermarkets and then thawed before sale. That’s not “fresh” to a Filipino. And if it doesn’t have a head on it, it’s always suspect (LOL).
Your new wife will probably love the fish you catch locally. The variety is less important than how “fresh” it is. My wife will eat practically any kind of fish if she sees it alive and wiggling before she cooks it. After your honeymoon, be sure to take the wife out fishing with you and see how she likes it. If you’re lucky, she will gladly clean all of the fish for you. The blue crabs are very popular here with Filipinos. I don’t care for Mackerel like Jeff S does, but it’s also a popular fish with most Filipinos, especially if you can catch it live.
Ray
