Fishing History of Barramundi

According to Mr. Chen Fuju, the traditional fishing method in Xiamen's fisheries is longline fishing, which focuses on catching striped bass, sharks and snappers. Fishermen go out to sea to work, riding on fishing boats called fishing junks, carrying fishing gear is fishing gear, rather than nets. The blue jacks that roam the middle and upper waters of the southern Fujian-Taiwan shoal fishery were never the object of fishermen's longlining.In 1964, Xiamen's experimental lighted purse seine operation was successful, and only then did Xiamen's fishing boats begin to carry nets out to sea, so the barramundi became the main catch.

The Xiamen Fisheries Journal describes the blue jack: "It is the main species of fish in the offshore fishing boat group. The annual catch has accounted for about 40-50% of the total catch of pelagic fish since the mid-1970s, ranking first, and the resource is relatively stable." Since the fishing gear was changed from trolling to netting, small golden sardine (commonly known as sardine), blue round herring, fat-eyed herring, mackerel (commonly known as huawei), jawed round herring (commonly known as bamboo leaf barramundi), and mackerel (commonly known as dame's mackerel) have turned out to be the most dominant economic fish in Xiamen's fisheries. "The first few years of barramundi were very productive. When we couldn't eat them all, we took them to the sun and made dried fish. Barangay fish were sun-dried everywhere. Xiamen University's upper string playground was also full of sunshine. The air smelled of fish." Mr. Chen Fuzhuang recalled.

The people of Xiamen, who were accustomed to eating scallops, began to eat barangay fish, which they regarded as a supreme delicacy. A folk proverb says: "Balang Balang, delicious without any inibs (husbands)." This proverb mirrors another proverb, "Stewed herring fish with preserved vegetables (dried white radish), delicious and not divided into so-and-so (wives)": it seems that the Xiamen people's highest level of eating fish is to enjoy it exclusively. No one would have guessed that over the next three to four decades, as the oceans dried up and other fish became rarer and rarer, only the barramundi continued to land, so its value plummeted and it became a kind of poor fish, as cheap as mud. 20 years ago, the rich southern Fujian people looked down on the poor civil servants, and called the barramundi the "cadres' fish". In a few years, civil servants turned around and became the main consumer of abalone and shark's fin, which is a good thing. Now say cadres fish, there is a kind of change in the world.

Not all places eat abalone. The fish market on Weizhou Island in Guangxi is very rich in sharks, tiger fish, money fish, moray eels, squid and a variety of grouper, but I didn't see any barramundi. I didn't see any barramundi, nor did I find it in the local seafood stalls. But I do know that barramundi has been the premier catch in the South China Sea for the last 20 to 30 years. So where have all the local barramundi gone? I asked researcher Qiu Yongsong of the South China Sea Fisheries Research Institute for advice. He said, "Guangxi people don't eat barramundi. In Guangdong, Cantonese speakers don't eat barramundi either because they find it hot and humid. Barramundi is mainly used as fish feed for mariculture. Only the Fujianese, and the Chaoshanese in Guangdong who speak the Minnan dialect, and the Hainanese eat barramundi." In fact, Xiamen folklore is also rumored that barangay has toxicity, and is contraindicated for people with sensitive constitutions.

In general, whether or not to consume barramundi is related to the dietary traditions of a place. Since the 1980s, because of overfishing, China's traditional major economic fish, such as large and small yellowtail and striped bass, have been rapidly declining, unable to form a fish season, and a group of previously despised low-value fish have made their way onto our dinner tables. Like all necessities, the quality of our food is deteriorating and our dietary interests have had to be adjusted downwards. With the yellowtail out of the way, there was only the barramundi, and a new dietary aesthetic had to be established in barramundi. There is no way around it. Oddly enough, on second thought, I think barramundi is quite appropriate for our crass times.