Fried and steamed mud: food for the season
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From a Hong Kong restaurant:
Dare you try them?
Seriously, though, what gives with the translations?
I think that the problem arose with the name of the fish, which is so obscure that I haven't met anyone who has heard of it. We know it's likely piscine because of the fish semantophore on the left, and we can guess that it is pronounced something like meng because of the phonophore on the right. The character preceding the mystery glyph is the exceedingly common ní 泥 ("mud"). Adding that to the unusual 鯭, we could for the nonce call it a "mudfish".
In fact, there are such strange creatures, and I find them so fascinating that I will introduce them to you briefly here.
Neochanna is a genus of galaxiid fishes, commonly known as mudfish, which are native to New Zealand and south-eastern Australia.
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Mudfishes are found in wetlands, swamps, drains and springs. They typically live in still or slowly flowing, shallow water, with thick aquatic vegetation and overhead cover.
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Mudfish have the ability to aestivate during droughts, seeking out moist areas under logs and vegetation so they do not dry out. While emersed (out of the water), they respire through cutaneous respiration, either through their skin, or by taking mouthfuls of air. Emersed mudfish frequently lie on their backs, possibly improving cutaneous respiration through the thinner abdominal skin, improving oxygenation of vital organs, or rehydrating skin on their upper surfaces.
As wetland habitats dry out, the standing water may become stagnant and hypoxic. During this time mudfish will hang quietly at the surface with bubbles of air in their mouths to improve oxygen absorption. Some choose to leave hypoxic water before it dries out, and leave again if pushed back in.
While emersed they are aware of their surroundings and are responsive to change in their environment: changing position, moving to damper areas, and congregating. Although they may be found deep below the surface in cavities and root holes, they do not appear to create burrows for the purpose of aestivation, with the exception of N. cleaveri. Under experimental drought conditions, N. cleaveri created vertical shafts in the mud substrate, which allowed the fish to remain submersed as the free water evaporated. As the water within the shaft evaporated, the mudfish excavated horizontal tunnels where they awaited the return of the water. They do not feed while emersed, but may return to water at night to feed.
The actual existence of such bizarre fish has transfixed me because I previously knew about them only from a memorable passage in the work of the highly imaginative Chuang Tzu / Zhuangzi (ca. 3rd c. BC), my favorite Chinese writer of ancient times.
I suspect that 鯭 is a Cantonese name, inasmuch as the cuisine from that southern realm features many piscine species not familiar to outsiders. Digging (!) deeper, I discovered that the real name of the 泥鯭 in English is "mottled spinefoot" and that its Linnaean designation is Siganus fuscescens. (Wiktionary)
Cant. nai4 maang1 / Mand. níměng
Wikipedia has articles on:
The English Wikipedia article on 泥鯭 redirects here:
Siganus fuscescens, the mottled spinefoot, black rabbitfish, black spinefoot, dusky rabbitfish, fuscous rabbitfish, happy moments, mi mi, pearl-spotted spinefoot, pin-spotted spinefoot, stinging bream or West Australian rabbitfish, is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a rabbitfish belonging to the family Siganidae. It is found in the Western Pacific Ocean.
There is much more that could be said about this odd fish, but I'll mention only that the spines of some of its fins have venom that, while not usually lethal, can be very painful.
Returning to the two exotic dishes, if the mud sticks / clogs in your throat, try this entry from the same restaurant to swallow it down:
This one is a bit off-putting because of the "intestine", but if we render it as "Mandarin duck chitterlings" it sounds perhaps somewhat more palatable, particularly to southern ears (chitlins or chittlins).
The method of cooking is called:
Cant. bou1 zai2 faan6 / Mand. bāozǎifàn 煲仔飯
煲仔飯
"clay pot rice"
Afterword
In previous years, around this time, we have written about the "mud / schlump season", which is especially meaningful to people in Hanover, New Hampshire and the heartland of Russia. See "Selected readings" below for some of the reasons why. Lord knows we've had a bitterly cold winter here in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania (we're hoping and praying for Punxsutawney Phil to come back out of his groundhog burrow), but almost no accumulation of snow, so there won't be much mud in the spring, whereas the folks up in Hanover, New Hampshire and Moscow, Russia are getting ready for the big thaw that comes with duckboards and wooden planks to cross the muddy paths (I've seen archeologically preserved ones from earlier centuries) — part of the yearly cycle.
Lexicographical resources
for 鯭 — (Cant.) 泥鯭, a kind of fish that lives in turbid water
Selected readings
- "Braised enterovirus, anyone?" (7/16/08) — clay pot cooking
- "Chinesey Japanese in a Hong Kong restaurant" (10/2/21)
- "Mud season in Old English" (4/1/20)
- "Mud season in Russia: Putin, Rasputin" (3/31/18)
- "Schlump season" (3/21/15) — virtuoso, classic treatment of the subject
- "Spring mud" (11/25/18)
[Thanks to rit malors]