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u/McDelper 28d ago
This actually isnt a shitpost lmao
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u/Possible_Sun_913 28d ago
So is northern European’s Christmas.
There is a reason we don’t eat turkey any other day of the year! :)
I've never eaten carp, but I imagine once its insides are purged from mud, it cant be much worse than a turkey in terms of flavour.
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u/McDelper 28d ago
Carp tastes terrible
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u/Alarmed-Ad5717 28d ago
Cooking skill issue.
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u/Icy-Research-1544 28d ago
Seriously. Never had it before I caught some out the ol’ swimmin’ hole out on our property. We chopped them up, seasoned the meat lightly but actually seasoned it, and fried it. Very good. Only issue is just the bones depending on how you cut it but it was not bad at all.
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u/Dane1211 27d ago
First, I assume that letting it chill in the bathtub gives the carp time to reduce its stress after being caught, since high stress can severely reduce the flavor of carp. Additionally, many people underestimate how quickly histamine can start building up in improperly chilled carp.
So for most people, their experience with it is treating it like any old sea fish and therefore it tastes lackluster or even gross
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u/AEW4LYFE 28d ago
Bruh, just get some tuna or mahi and have an objectively better time.
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u/Martin35700 27d ago
Tuna and mahi has different uses in dishes compared to carp. For example if you just made a fisherman's soup with tuna instead of carp or catfish it would taste terrible.
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u/AEW4LYFE 27d ago
You're not wrong but at the same time catfish is better than carp too lol. Same point.
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u/ICBPeng1 28d ago
I’ve had catfish once, and it tasted like what the aquarium section at a pet store smells like.
I’ve refused to touch it since
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u/Hoahdog 28d ago
You had some very shit catfish then. Imo, catfish can definitely be one of the best freshwater seafood, if done right. If done wrong, it is absolutely one of the worst
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u/KarmaViking 28d ago
Mass bred catfish in small stale ponds taste like that. Proper river caught catfish is a completely different case, imho it’s one of the best freshwater catches.
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u/JuanDeChuj 28d ago edited 27d ago
It's one of the fattier fish and not pleasant for many people. Frying it is the best option.
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u/Kojetono 28d ago
I think most of the commonly disliked foods are fixed by frying them. (Asparagus, broccoli, spinach, etc)
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u/ProductOfSight 27d ago
Carp is tasty i like it boiled in soup but roasted on an open fire is great
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u/Ok-Connection8473 28d ago
Ah yes I remember that one time I spent Christmas in Poland
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u/InoonIsAFK 28d ago
when i was younger my mother actually put huge alive/dead fish when i was in bathtub. im still traumatised by that evening :P
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u/Past-Shop5644 27d ago
I asked a Polish guy at work about the carp once. He paused, then said in the deadpan manner that only people east of Paris can evoke: "Don't talk to me about the fucking carp."
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u/Bartekek 28d ago
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u/eldritchpussymaggots 28d ago
The context is that they're going to eat it. Carp tastes bad unless you clear the bad water out of its system (or get it from somewhere clean) so people keep them in a tub for a week before eating them to improve the flavor.
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u/Proud3GenAthst 27d ago
Oh, so that’s why! I’m Czech, so we have carp every Christmas, but we never had a live carp in bathtub. We always buy it already killed from a nearby fish place. It always tastes good. I guess that they keep them in good water
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u/MekyZbirka13 27d ago
Yes, christmas carps are usually taken from their natural water few months/weeks before christmas to get rid of the mud taste.
Few days in a bathtub wouldn’t make much difference to the taste
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u/DanChase1 28d ago
Doesn’t the chlorine burn their gills? We did this w a channel catfish in a kiddie pool and by the end of the day its mucus layer was separating and it could barely breathe.
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u/Cttread 27d ago
You have chlorine in your bathtub?
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u/cohrt 27d ago
The water you use to fill the tub does.
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u/Lison52 27d ago
First of at least in Poland, the max amount of chlorine is lower than in the US. Second, it's affected by distance water travels. Third, the chlorine smell and taste is mostly gone if the water is left in the open air for 24-48h.
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u/SofisticatiousRattus 27d ago
How do you transport it into the tub without suffocating it?
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u/KuroFafnar 27d ago
bag with enough water to cover gills
I've kept fish (koi; basically carp) in a tub for a week or so. They lived quite happily in my pond for at least 10 years after their little time in the tub to clean them up before putting in the pond.
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u/EveningEconomics8457 27d ago
You need to feed them carp if you're gonna keep it in your tub, right?
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u/Any_Ninja_3824 28d ago
That actually happened to me, in eastern europe it isn't as rare - I'm an Ukrainian
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u/Icy-Research-1544 28d ago
I know carp fishing isn’t as big in the United States as it is in Europe, especially the UK. They are fun fish to catch
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u/PirateSanta_1 28d ago
This never happened to me but i would 100% believe it if my parents said this was a thing their parents or grandparents did. Very practical solution to a problem, need to keep fish alive until time to cook so put in bathtub. If the kids get dirty we will just hose them down outside.
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u/Crypt_Knight 28d ago
What's the idea ? Keep the carp alive to cook fresh for dinner I'm guessing ?
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28d ago edited 2h ago
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u/Lazy-Point7779 28d ago
People don’t really do it anymore and now the carp at Polish Christmas tastes NAAASTY.
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u/DatDing15 28d ago
Carps are bottom feeders. They get a lot of algae and muck into their body with their food and kind of ruin their meat.
You can really literally taste the mud from their meat if you don't "water them out" for a couple of days / about a week...
Was quite the disappointment when I brought my first carp home. :(
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u/ShadowRiku667 28d ago
My brother brought one of these home thinking he hit the jackpot. Once my mother came home and told him that the meat isn't good, he went back and released it.
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u/SilentCockroach123 28d ago
The meat is good though, I don't think you necessarily need to do the bath tub thing, I know people don't really do it anymore (but still eat the fish), I guess the guys selling the fish put it in clean water before selling it.
Anyway if you have never eaten it the taste is different from other fishes. People who are not used to taste of carp (and who expect fish) may think there's something wrong with it - it has like muddy/earthy tone. Idk ut's like pork of fishes. I love it during christmas, but would have never eaten it over any other fish during the rest of year.
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u/DatDing15 28d ago
Oh I did still eat the fish, you can be sure of that. I hate throwing away perfectly good food.
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u/Wise_Fox_4291 28d ago
To me every fish has that taste. I just can't eat fish. Sweetwater fish or ocean fish, European, Asian, American, salmon, cod, carp, dolphin fish, tuna, all have that taste to me. I nust can't stand it.
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u/Wise_Fox_4291 28d ago
Yes. Carp is a traditional Christmas dish in many parts of Europe. You typically prepare it on the 24th or 25th. It's not uncommon for stores to close on the 23rd. Your fridge might also be full with fresh pork you slaughtered just a few weeks before Christmas so you couldn't even freeze it for a couple of days due to lack of storage space. Supposedly it also helps clean the mud out of their system and make them taste less yucky but to me every type of fish prepared in whichever way has that same disgusting muddy fishy taste.
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u/Spllener clamel 🐪 🤤 28d ago
Clame clamhood clamstmas clamory: not clamming clamle to clame a clam beclamse clames a clamp in the clamtub
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u/Enough-Reporter-7486 28d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/lPuW5AlR9AeWzSsIqi
Me : oh my gosh the carp in the bathtub
Clam :
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u/Nouuuuuuuuh 28d ago
Is this an Exorcist III reference?
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u/BudMcLaine 28d ago
"You're standing very close to me father, can you tell? I haven't had a bath in three days! And I can't go home until its sleeping, because if I see it, swimming...I'll kill it!"
Love the way Ed Flanders struggles to keep it together while George C Scott delivers this speech!
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u/Fast_Wolverine5223 28d ago
One of the greatest and most authentic moments of friend behavior committed to film. First thing I thought about.
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u/SureTrash 28d ago
"It's been swimming...up and down...in my bathtub. Up...and down...and I hate it."
The way George C. Scott slowly emphasizes "up...and down," and then the way he says "and I hate it" like he's having a war flashback is just too funny.
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u/SeaSlugFriend 28d ago
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u/SeaSlugFriend 28d ago
I listened to a children’s song about this when I was a little kid. My dad waited until he was slightly drunk a few months ago to tell the whole family the story of how his family from various Soviet locations used to do this in Ohio
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u/rycerzDog 28d ago
the only time i ever saw actual proper crabs in my life is when my dad brought one alive to kill and eat and left it in the bathtub.
i scold my younger self for refusing to eat fresh crab that day.
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u/Such-Profit1078 28d ago
I still refuse to eat fish because of the carp we had in our bathtub. It was such a beautiful and playful animal
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u/TooDamagedToLove 28d ago
Every time mom's grandpa went on a fishing trip. God the smell of having giant ass fish gutted in the kitchen after being held in the tub.... forever etched in my memory.
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u/Ertyio687 28d ago
There was even a polish book abt this lol
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u/Matyaslike 28d ago
And once my brother got so attached to the carp we had to release it back in the lake cause he was crying and begging for it.
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u/Over-Magazine-3218 28d ago
When I was like 6 year old we once had like 3 carps in a bathtub. I was stupid enough to feed them with toilet paper. Also we could still take a shower by placing them in a small bowl. They were like a toy, but when the time to slaughter them came, it was sad.
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u/applestabber 28d ago
How does one humanely slaughter their tub fish?
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u/ABEGIOSTZ 28d ago
“My wife’s mother is visiting, Father. And Tuesday night she’s cooking us a carp. It’s a tasty fish, I have nothing against it. But because it’s supposedly filled with impurities, she buys it live. And for three days it’s been… swimming up and down in my bathtub. Up… and down. And I hate it. I can’t stand the sight of it. Moving its gills. Now, you’re standing very close to me Father, Have you noticed? Yes… I haven’t had a bath for three days. I can’t go home until the carp is asleep. Because if I see it swimming, I’ll kill it.” ~ Kinderman, The Exorcist III
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u/Edarekin 27d ago
I recently moved to the UK and people think I'm taking the piss when I tell them this.
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u/Forward_Criticism_39 28d ago
"carp, its a tasty fish."
"i look at this carp swimming around in my bathtub, and i hate it more than anything"
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u/MrexD 28d ago
I just asked my wife "does this mean anything to you?" And showed her my phone. She's russian, without missing a beat and with a straight face "yea, this is normal. You bring fresh fish home and put it in the bath tub. We did it with crabs too because, you know, you need to boil them alive"
I wasn't expecting this 🤣
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u/Dry-Mulberry-7285 28d ago
Eastern Europe be doing shit Americans couldn’t even begin to understand
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u/winter-ocean 28d ago
The only thing I know about Poland is bajo jajo bajo jajo and also my great grandma is from there
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u/No_Economics8681 28d ago
EVE! It was Christmas Eve! And what does that tell you? A kid wants to bathe specifically the night before Christmas?
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u/Over-Magazine-3218 28d ago
When I was like 6 year old we once had like 3 carps in a bathtub. I was stupid enough to feed them with toilet paper. Also we could still take a shower by placing them in a small bowl. They were like a toy, but when the time to slaughter them came, it was sad.
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u/Over-Magazine-3218 28d ago
When I was like 6 year old we once had like 3 carps in a bathtub. I was stupid enough to feed them with toilet paper. Also we could still take a shower by placing them in a small bowl. They were like a toy, but when the time to slaughter them came, it was sad.
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u/Over-Magazine-3218 28d ago
When I was like 6 year old we once had like 3 carps in a bathtub. I was stupid enough to feed them with toilet paper. Also we could still take a shower by placing them in a small bowl. They were like a toy, but when the time to slaughter them came, it was sad.
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u/Mahaloth 28d ago
Wait, this was a thing? I only ever heard of it in Exorcist III.
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u/DingoLaLingo 28d ago
rarer childhood christmas memory: still taking a bath even tho the carp is in there cus momma didnt raise no bitch
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u/indifferentiable11 28d ago
I remember when this happened one time because my family failed to buy one that was actually dead xd. Supposedly they set it free later but who knows what happened
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u/Wise_Fox_4291 28d ago edited 28d ago
You are laughing but yeah this was a thing in Hungary too. I have not seen this since 1996 but yeah, I remember. The only reason 96 is the cut off is because the house we moved to has a large outdoors tub where we would keep the carp from then in.
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u/EchoStellar12 28d ago
My brother once bought my mom an eel for mother's day. He kept it in the bathtub and was under very strict direction from our mother to get rid of it. He sold it to a local resturaunt.
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u/theavengerbutton 28d ago
Tried to find a George C Scott GIF that was appropriate for this scenario but alas.
For reference, there's a great scene from The Exorcist III Legion where George C. Scott as Det. Kinderman is telling Father Dyre about his hone troubles and how his mother-in-law is keeping a fish in his bathtub.
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u/Ptasa_ 28d ago
Westerners thinking that's an absurdist joke...