Yellow croaker is a seafood with delicious and tender meat.
Almost all the yellow croakers seen on the market today are products of aquaculture.
The story of wild yellow croaker can be said to be a history of ups and downs.
In terms of distribution, large yellow croaker is distributed throughout my country's coastal areas. In addition, it is also distributed in certain numbers in the Korean Peninsula, eastern and southern parts of the country.
Unfortunately, the area where the yellow croaker lives is one of the fastest growing regions in the world's economy, right near the 21st century.
Therefore, just like all the fish living here, environmental pollution and overfishing are like sharp blades, rubbing the wild yellow croaker schools in the water.
It is very difficult to protect the large yellow croaker, which is already in a critically endangered state.
In terms of living habits, large yellow croaker is a migratory brackish water fish.
The habitat of wild yellow croaker is mainly the mid-bottom waters of coastal and estuary areas, where it preys on crustaceans and small fish.
This habitat distribution of yellow croaker can be said to be very susceptible to the impact of coastal sewage discharge.
At the same time, there has been a very serious problem of overfishing in my country's coastal areas, which has led to a shortage of fishery resources and made it difficult for wild yellow croaker to find enough food.
However, for wild yellow croaker, there is another huge threat that humans may be completely unaware of, and that is the sound produced by humans.
The harm of sound to wild yellow croaker is even greater than environmental pollution.
The big yellow croaker is classified as a member of the Sciaenidae family. This family of fish has a major characteristic, which is that they have a skull stone on their heads that is used to perceive sound.
Although this structure plays an important role in helping yellow croakers find prey and avoid enemies in the wild, it has inevitably made them one of the biggest victims of human noise pollution in modern times.
Whether it is the huge noise caused by the passage of various ships or offshore engineering construction, it will have a great impact on nearby members of the Sciaenidae family, including the big yellow croaker, and may even cause them to faint or be shocked to death.
In addition to environmental problems and various bycatch, yellow croaker also faces a serious problem, that is, people's "protection".
In many coastal areas, large numbers of farmed yellow croaker are released into the wild in order to ensure the sustainable development of fisheries and what they believe is population reproduction.
This behavior can be said to be the same as the so-called meritorious release of animals by some groups. Not only will it fail to protect wild populations, it may even bring them huge crises.
Artificially bred large yellow croakers generally suffer from severe physical deformities due to long-term inbreeding, and because they have been growing in an artificial breeding environment for generations, their immunity is much lower than that of wild populations.
When these artificially bred yellow croakers are released into the wild, they will not only have irreversible negative impacts on the genes of wild yellow croakers, but will also bring many diseases to wild populations, thus further causing the deterioration and genetic decline of wild yellow croaker populations.
It can be said that to this day, although people’s awareness of environmental and animal protection is constantly increasing, there are still no effective protection measures or even plans for the wild population of yellow croaker.
As for the protection of yellow croaker, even biologists can only pray that this beautiful fish will not disappear from the sea forever. Perhaps many people agree with environmental management and protection of the environment, but there is definitely not much money to support noise control at sea.
However, with the continuous improvement of breeding technology, it is impossible for yellow croaker to be truly extinct. At most, the number of wild yellow croaker will be decreasing.
However, there are still significant differences between farmed yellow croaker and wild yellow croaker.
There is a statement in Yuan Mei’s famous "Suiyuan Food List", "Generally speaking, yellow croaker is a fish with a strong flavor and cannot be cooked in a light way." What he meant was that yellow croaker itself is a fish with a strong flavor and cannot be cooked in a light way. The yellow croaker here refers to wild yellow croaker.
Fish has a special place in our country's New Year dishes.
As the saying goes, "no fish, no feast". Besides the auspicious meaning of abundance every year, fish itself represents a delicacy.
From the regret of "you can't have your cake and eat it too", we can see that fish is a very rare delicacy in places other than its origin.
my country has a very long history of artificial fish farming.
The earliest fish farming in rice fields began in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the farming of black carp, grass carp, silver carp and bighead carp began in the Tang Dynasty.
However, the four major carps that enter the pond have not "given birth" for thousands of years, because for millions of years they have had to migrate regularly in natural water bodies to complete sexual maturity and lay eggs.
Fish farming in ponds has always relied on catching fish fry in the natural environment, and the scale of production is bound to be limited.
It was not until the 1950s that technological breakthroughs were achieved, and the fry of the four major carps were successfully artificially bred, and the technology of artificial fish farming achieved a qualitative leap.
Yellow croaker was once the national fish of our country. It was a common dish among people living on the coast and was also a delicious childhood memory for many urban residents in the mainland.
The scene of thousands of boats competing to catch yellow croaker in Zhoushan fishing grounds was many times more spectacular than the winter fishing in Chagan Lake shown in today's documentaries.
For diners, the most distinctive feature of wild yellow croaker is its garlicky flesh.
Garlic meat is a description of the texture of fish.
Only the fish meat that is white, tender, almost boneless, and has meat pieces as complete as garlic cloves is called garlic meat.
Large yellow croaker is a typical example of garlic meat.
There are only a handful of fish with garlic-like meat. Fish like wild yellow croaker with such beautiful garlic-like meat is simply a godsend.
In the coastal areas of my country, especially in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, yellow croaker was an indispensable part of the local food culture in the early years.
In Ningbo, which has a long history of traditional fishing grounds, yellow croaker plays a core role in the local cuisine.
Among the top ten famous dishes of Ningbo, which have slightly different versions, four are related to yellow croaker, such as yellow croaker cooked with seaweed, yellow croaker belly, colorfully stir-fried whole yellow croaker, and yellow croaker wrapped in bean curd skin.
Although these famous dishes are still available today, they are no longer the wild yellow croakers of the past.
The history of catching wild yellow croaker in my country can be traced back to the ancient times two or three thousand years ago.
According to the famous early local chronicle "Wu Di Ji" written by Lu Guangwei in the Tang Dynasty, in the tenth year of Helu (505 BC), fishing for large yellow croaker had already begun along the coast of eastern Zhejiang.
The Ming Dynasty's "Huayi Flowers, Trees, Birds, and Beasts" records that "the people of Hai County sent huge boats to Yangshan to compete for stonehead fish. There are tides and they are called Yangshan fish."
However, what really makes the name of yellow croaker resound through thousands of households is not this food culture that has been passed down for thousands of years. After all, the history of yellow croaker being supplied to the mainland is not long.
The real reason why the name of big yellow croaker spread throughout the country is closely related to the lives of people living by the sea.
In the old dialect of the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas, a pedal three-wheeled truck is called a "yellow croaker cart", gold bars are also called yellow croaker, one weighing ten taels is called a big yellow croaker, one weighing one tael is called a small yellow croaker, and the act of slacking off at work is called "drying the yellow croaker", which means drying the big yellow croaker.