Rupchanda

Fish-vendors in Noida stock a fish with a lovely name - Rupchanda. 

Over the past few weeks, I have been keeping an eye on it at the fish-vendors, but until last Friday I somehow could not muster the confidence to try a new unfamiliar fish over the tried and tested Pabda or Rohu. The fishes were always placed in ascending order of pricing - Pabdas cost INR 120/kg, the going rate for Rohus is INR 180/kg, and Rupdhanda was lined up in the middle at INR 160/kg.

True to its name Rupchanda does have a striking, beautiful form - flat like a pomfret but fleshier, with a larger mouth and a dash of pinkish red scales on its belly. Another prominent feature is its teeth, a fine set of incisors and grinders line up in its mouth, giving it an almost mammalian appearance.

I tried to look it up on the online stores, and was puzzled to find that this evidently popular best-seller was not available on FreshtoHome, Amazon, Licious, or IndiaMart. 

Why so?

Digging a little deeper I finally came across an article in the Hindu newspaper. Rupchanda is also called the Red-bellied Pacu or Piaractus brachypomus. It is an alien species that has not yet been approved for farming and sale in India because...its original home is in South America, and is closely related to...the Piranhas!

So my fish-vendor was selling me a banned fish with cousins that have a fearsome reputation of being 'extremely predatory...with a powerful and dangerous bite generated by large jaw muscles'. Its cousins may be dangerous and the Rupchanda too may be tearing apart the fisherman's nets...but its delicious!

Now those teeth make sense. 

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* Sudhi, KS (2018), The Hindu: A delicious alien in Kerala Kitchens - https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/south-americas-red-bellied-pacu-a-delicious-alien-in-kerala-kitchens/article24421299.ece