Invasive carp: The dinner guest nobody wants to invite

I have never been politically correct, nor have I have I been one to embrace current fads or lifestyle flukes.

My wife continues to tell some of our friends I am an old-fashioned kind of guy. I readily admit that I rarely like change unless the change itself will result in a better lifestyle or some marked improvement in the fish populations in our area lakes.

And when it comes to food and restaurants I continue to favor the old reliables, like a medium-cooked T-bone or strip steak. I’ll go to the same eateries in Key West that offer shrimp as big as my hand, and Florida lobsters (crawfish) that give the northeast coast varieties a run for their money. I am fairly certain by now you get the picture.

So when I again see the PR types on television and in print exclaiming the virtues of the varieties of Asian carp as table fare, I get a little queasy, to say the least.

I realize the silver and bighead carp issue is old news in the Chicago area, but the ever-continuing story is about commercial fish operations and a handful of Chicago-area chefs proclaiming that these fish are good to eat.

I recently saw IDNR Director Mark Miller on the tube with two chefs. Mark didn’t say much but the chefs apparently felt an obligation to glorify the Asian carp as an acceptable food source.

What wasn’t said is the possibility that the water where these fish swim and live may not be, let me phrase this in a more politically acceptable manner, the water may not be fit to use for clothes washing.

Now there may be some out there who would like to argue with me that Lake Michigan water contains some pretty questionable stuff. Our beloved lake is the watery home to the treasured coho and king salmon, as well as the tasty rainbow trout. There have been think tanks, quasi-scientific panels, and politicians spouting doom and gloom statements about what is and isn’t prevalent in Lake Michigan.

In any given year you and I have witnessed warning statements from various agencies that Lake Michigan water contains harmful chemical XYZ. The next year we’ll hear about another so-called dangerous batch of stuff is in the water and we should limit our intake of fish. And then the cycle runs to the so-called experts who deride the naysayers.

So here are these chefs touting the use of Asian carp as a food source for anyone willing to overcome their gag reflexes.

This carp story is something akin to one of the reality shows on cable’s Food and Travel Channel where any number of hosts travel around the world searching for exotic foodstuffs to satisfy their immediate quest for the different and culture-defined yummies of the land they’re visiting.

I grew up in a household where my father always enjoyed satisfying his taste for different kinds of foods. I, of course, stuck with my mother’s tried and proven menu until I moved away and became a man of the world.

Anyway, the public relations push for us to consume Asian carp continues to take on a flavor unlike anything I’ve encountered in recent years.

While fishing for Illinois River walleyes and sauger, some of us had joked in the past that the jumping silver carp in the river could jump their way to tables across the Midwest. It appears that kind of Currier and Ives dinner scene has yet to entice Chicago-area taste buds to switch from Lake Michigan yellow perch to the ugly, Illinois River aquatic cousin no one wants for dinner.

Ÿ Contact Mike Jackson at angler88@comcast.net, and catch his radio show 6-7 a.m. Sundays.