Canada.com, 16 February 2011
Mark McNaughton shakes a handful of pellets across the dark water and watches it start to roil. The placid surface hiding hundreds of sleek tilapia explodes with a slap and splatter. Almost as quickly, the fish slip back down to the bottom of the tank; only the paler ones remain visible, ghostlike under the water.
Here, in a converted hog barn surrounded by acres of snow-covered grain fields, McNaughton and his family raise tens of thousands of the freshwater fish before shipping them live to stores in Calgary and Edmonton. It's unexpected, the idea of raising fish on the bald prairie, but it's not as unusual as it once was, says McNaughton, who also heads up the Alberta Aquaculture Association.
There are 10 fish farms in Alberta, three of which focus on tilapia; the rest raise trout and a few also have carp. Tilapia has been farm-raised for decades and is second only to carp for being the most cultured fish around the world, according to the Ocean Wise Cookbook (Whitecap Books, $34.95).
The McNaughtons - Mark, his wife, his brother and sister-in-law, and their parents - still grow grain on 3,500 acres, and often see raised eyebrows when people ask if they raise livestock. "Yeah," McNaughton tells them, "we have fish."
They started with trout - after getting out of the hog business just as the market fell in the late '90s - but found it conflicted with the grain side of the business. That's when they began eyeing tilapia, which grows continuously, allowing them to more easily juggle the aquaculture side around seed planting and harvest.
Using a shell of the hog barn and its flush system, they essentially created a giant aquarium with nine tanks in the "nursery" and another 22 in the "grow out." A filtration system allows them to recycle water, losing only a small amount.
It's as intensive as hog farming, McNaughton admits. "But they smell better than hogs." They arrive by the thousands - small fry about the size of a pencil eraser, in vivid colours: black, grey, iridescent green - from a hatchery in Idaho.
In the smallest nursery tub, they scurry to the surface, eager for food, swarming over one another's slippery bodies. Later, when they get older, they will shy away from attention, the fear of predators ingrained. Peering over the side of the circular tanks sends them scurrying to the bottom.
Over the course of about 10 to 12 months, the fish steadily gain weight and are moved from tank to tank until, at about 1.5 pounds (about 700 g), they are ready for market. MDM Aquafarms only ships live fish, selling to stores like T&T where whole, live fish are more highly prized than those already filleted.
The highest demand comes between Christmas and Chinese new year, Mc-Naughton says. But since the fish grow continuously, it's easy to buy them year-round.
The market in Alberta is steady and third only to Toronto and B.C. Tilapia's mild taste makes it easy to cook with as the flesh easily picks up the flavours of spices and other ingredients. "It's like the zucchini of fish," McNaughton says.
But, he says, they are finicky to clean and debone. For those not up to the task, many stores (including T&T) also sell tilapia fillets.
Calgary's Catch Restaurant & Oyster Bar often serves tilapia as a special feature, taking advantage of its availability (they get all of theirs from Alberta farms), its sustainability as a farmed fish (it gets the Ocean Wise seal of approval) and its culinary flexibility.
"It's pretty versatile; it's easy to cook," says executive chef Kyle Groves. The white-fleshed tilapia is neither fishy nor oily, which suits most people. Its taste and flaky texture is similar to a snapper, Groves notes.
Catch recently served up a blackened tilapia with a balsamic reduction over barley risotto; the restaurant has also done it up with tandoori flavour. The fish can handle such bold tastes, says Groves.
"It's also nice if you do a marinade with something like Pernod or Sambuca, something a little more mild," he adds. Cooking tilapia is easy, but Groves offers up a few tips to make it taste great: use a nice hot pan and put a good sear on one side, and serve it immediately.
Source: Canada.com
