Enjoy freshness of wild-caught seafood

During the prawn season, these XXL prawns weighing 597g sold for RM36.

Inshore fishermen in Penang go out to sea in locations just half an hour’s drive from markets

KNOWING how the more than 4,000 inshore fishermen in Penang work can help you make better and more delicious choices when buying seafood.

A marine biologist once described them to me as “artisanal fishermen”, in that their drift nets take a lot of skill to deploy; the nets will twist into a useless mess if not let out deftly.

They triangulate their fishing spots using landmarks, and the ones I went out to sea with rely on the peaks of Penang Hill and Gunung Jerai to fix their positions before deploying their nets.

A prawn fisherman works two nets almost frantically.

Each net is floated out from either side of the boat for no more than 20 minutes.

After the second net is fully deployed, it is time to retrieve the first net.

This happens at 20-minute intervals throughout the tidal condition of roughly six hours.

Fishermen looking for fish like mackerel or pomfret have it a little easier.

Their nets stay longer in the water and during the wait, they use rods and reels to try their luck.

They use large live bait, since they only want whoppers as their bonus catch.

Fishermen targeting live flower crabs have to leave their nets on the seabed for at least three days.

When they bring their catch back, they are too tired, so they rely on wholesalers to sell to customers.

Several fishmongers are also wholesalers.

One such fishmonger at Pulau Tikus market told me that every day, he takes all the catch of 20 inshore fishermen in Penang.

He cannot pick and choose; he bears the risk if the fishermen bring back unpopular fish and has to pay more if they find rarer fish.

I noticed this during the Covid-19 pandemic because that was the time when I went to market frequently after getting sick of takeaway food.

He would sometimes sell the weirdest fish, such as Bombay Duck, Sicklefish and Flathead.

Once, he had two rare Coral Groupers – their eyes and gills looked so fresh and there was not a single scale missing on their bodies, which told me they were line-caught instead of getting snared in nets.

If you see an array of fish for sale that is of uniform size you can be almost certain that these are farmed saltwater fish.

They would have been growing together in the same floating sea cages and would therefore be of the same size.

There is nothing wrong or bad about farmed fish, except that if you want to experience a higher degree of culinary delight, fresh wild-caught seafood still takes the cake.

Last week, my buddy from Kuala Lumpur stayed with me for a holiday.

We both love to cook and had a long-standing debate about the differences in quality of seafood between KL and Penang.

On his final day here, I took him to Pulau Tikus market and he was stunned by the freshness and obvious wildness of the seafood.

He bought many fish to bring back to KL.

When it comes to seafood, you cannot beat living on an island with thousands of inshore fishermen who go out and come back with the tide, from locations just half an hour’s drive from the market.