Sarley: Why it’s surprising that Illinois residents eat cod, not surprising they don’t eat copi

I love me a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. I just can’t get enough turkey, not to mention gravy, stuffing, green bean casserole, cranberry relish and all the rest. What’s even better is that we get to “rinse and repeat” again within a month because many of us have the same feast again on Christmas.

I’ll be honest and admit that I get turkeyed out after the first of the year. By Jan. 1, I have a taste for fish. I truly do.

A recent email I received has really gotten my salivary glands pumping. It was from New York City’s Fulton Fish Market, the largest fish market in the United States, which opened in 1822. The new 400,000-square-foot market sees up to two million pounds of seafood arrive every day, making it the second-largest fish market in the world after Tokyo.

The Fulton Fish Market does an incredible retail business and has a phenomenal internet business. They ship tons and tons of the best quality, freshly frozen seafood to its worldwide customer base. The best seafood restaurants are on the customer list for Fulton Fish Market. These folks seem to know their seafood.

The thing that grabbed my eye from the email was that Fulton Fish Market was offering information about a new Google study that analyzed seafood searches across 20-plus seafood types on a nationwide basis.

The study showed that cod is the favorite seafood in the Land of Lincoln. I find that amazing. No other of our 50 states even ranks cod in their top three. Perch is trending up 22% in the last quarter, but perch has a long way to go to catch the cod in popularity.

I asked Ryan Milejczak, who is in charge of media relations for Fulton Fish Market, about how Illinoisans ranked against our neighbors. He explained that in Wisconsin, cod doesn't even make the top five, and incredibly, sardines rule there. In Indiana, cod is nowhere to be found and crab is preferred. Iowans are all about salmon, and strangely enough, the favorite seafood in Missouri is mahi mahi.

I asked Milejczak if the newly named fish, the “copi” had shown up anywhere in the survey. If you recall, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the state of Illinois had a big advertising campaign to try to change the name of the Asian carp to “copi.” The Asian carp are prolific breeders, and Pritzker and Co. thought that by changing the name to Copi, people would eat them.

Guess what? The campaign was a dud and nobody is buying copi.

“No, copi did not appear in our rankings,” Milejczak said. “It was not included among the seafood terms with sufficient search volume in the Google Keyword Planner data used for this study.”

Surprise, surprise. Personally, I would be interested in trying to eat copi, but I can’t find them available on a retail basis at any fish purveyors or grocers.

Realizing that catch-and-release is such a popular practice, I am sure that most freshwater lake fish are not caught and cooked. But I do have to say that on the rare occasions that I am fortunate enough to have a fish dinner, my favorite selections are bluegill, walleye, lake perch and coho salmon.

I think I just opened the floodgates to comments from those of you who like bass or pike or catfish over my choices. I’d like to hear what kinds of fish you prefer to eat. I’d also be very interested in learning how you all like to prepare them.

• Daily Herald Outdoors columnist Steve Sarley can be reached at sarfishing@yahoo.com.