Hong Kong Strange Food. The Dried Monk Fish. Tai O Village

Tao O is a small village in the southern tip of Lantau Island, Hong Kong. In the street markets here, more than in any other part of Hong Kong, you can find the strangest sea creatures and fish sold. These sun dried monk fish looked like animals from another planet. I have no idea how to use them in the kitchen!

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Tai O (Chinese: 大澳) is a fishing town, partly located on an island of the same name, on the western side of Lantau Island in Hong Kong.

Geography

On the southwest part of Lantau Island, a river splits to the north and west and at this fork lies the island referred to as Tai O. Two pedestrian bridges cross the river on its northern and western forks. The village is located mostly on the banks of the river. The western and northern parts of the island facing the South China Sea are uninhabited.

History

Stories that would be impossible to substantiate have Tai O as the base of many smuggling and piracy operations, the inlets of the river providing excellent protection from the weather and a hiding place. In early 16th century, Tai O was once occupied shortly by Portuguese during the Battle of Tamao. At nearby Fan Lau, a fort was built in 1729 to protect shipping on the Pearl River. Smuggling of guns, tobacco, drugs and people remains a documented illegal activity both into and out of mainland China.

When the British came to Hong Kong, Tai O was known as a Tanka village. During and after the Chinese Civil War, Tai O became a primary entrypoint for illegal immigration for those escaping from the People's Republic of China. Some of these immigrants, mostly Cantonese, stayed in Tai O, and Tai O attracted people from other Hong Kong ethnic groups, including Hoklo (Hokkien) and Hakka.

Tai O has a history of salt production. In 1940, it was recorded that the Tai Po salt marshes were covering 70 acres (280,000 m2) and that the production has amounted to 25,000 piculs (1,512 metric tons) in 1938.

Currently the fishing lifestyle is dying out. While many residents continue to fish, it barely provides a subsistence income. There is a public school on the island and most young people move away when they come of age. In 2000 a large fire broke out destroying many residences. The village is now mostly squatters huts and dilapidated stilt houses.

The traditional salted fish and shrimp paste and storefronts at Tai O. For a small fee, some residents will take tourists out on their boats along the river and for short jaunts into the sea. Many tourists come to Tai O specifically to take these trips to see Chinese white dolphins. It is also a good place to see the sunset.

Old Tai O Police Station, a Grade II historic building, has been turned into a boutique hotel called Tai O Heritage Hotel by Hong Kong Heritage Conservation Foundation. The hotel has nine rooms and a restaurant. The hotel has been open and operational since 2012

Tai O Rural Committee Historic and Cultural Showroom, located within the centuries-old fishing village of Tai O, exhibits relics of the local community's past, including fishing tools and dismantled old structures. The showroom was founded by the Tai O Rural Committee and all the items in its collection were donated by local residents.

The Monk fish

Members of the genus Lophius, also sometimes called monkfish, fishing-frogs, frog-fish and sea-devils, are well known off the coasts of Europe. To the North Sea fishermen, this fish is known as the "monk," or "monkfish", a name which also belongs to Squatina squatina, the angelshark, a fish allied to the skates. The north European species is Lophius piscatorius, the Mediterranean species Lophius budegassa.

Species

The seven recognized extant species in this genus are :

Lophius americanus Valenciennes, 1837 (American angler)

Lophius budegassa Spinola, 1807 (blackbellied angler)

Lophius gastrophysus A. Miranda-Ribeiro, 1915 (blackfin goosefish)

Lophius litulon D. S. Jordan, 1902 (yellow goosefish)

Lophius piscatorius Linnaeus, 1758 (angler)

Lophius vaillanti Regan, 1903 (shortspine African angler)

Lophius vomerinus Valenciennes, 1837 (devil anglerfish)

†Lophius brachysomus Agassiz, 1835 (Monte Bolca, or Eocene anglerfish)

Description

The head is of enormous size, broad, flat, and depressed, with the remainder of the body appearing merely like an appendage. The wide mouth extends all around the anterior circumference of the head, and both jaws are armed with bands of long, pointed teeth, which are inclined inwards, and can be temporarily depressed so as to offer no impediment to an object gliding towards the stomach, while still preventing its escape from the mouth. The pectoral and ventral fins are so articulated as to perform the functions of feet, the fish being enabled to "walk" on the bottom of the sea, where it generally hides itself in the sand or amongst seaweed. All around its head and also along the body, the skin bears fringed appendages resembling short fronds of seaweed. These structures, combined with the ability to change the colour of the body to match its surroundings, assists the fish greatly in concealing itself in its lurking places, which are selected for their abundance of prey.

Species of Lophius have three long filaments sprouting from the middle of their heads; these are the detached and modified three first spines of the anterior dorsal fin. As with all anglerfish species, the longest filament is the first, which terminates in an irregular growth of flesh, the esca (also referred to as the illicium), and is movable in all directions; this modified fin ray is used as a lure to attract other fish, which the monkfish then seize with their enormous jaws, devouring them whole. Whether the prey has been attracted to the lure or not is not strictly relevant, as the action of the jaws is an automatic reflex triggered by contact with the esca.

Monkfish, like most anglerfish, are also characterised by an enormously distensible stomach, which allows an individual monkfish to swallow prey fully as large as itself.[3][4] Monkfish grow to a length of more than 150 cm (4.9 ft); specimens of 100 cm (3.3 ft) are common.

Reproduction

The spawn of this genus consists of a thin sheet of transparent gelatinous material 60–100 cm (2.0–3.3 ft) wide and 8–10 m (26–33 ft) in length. The eggs in this sheet are in a single layer, each in its own little cavity. The spawn is free in the sea. The larvae are free-swimming and have the pelvic fins with elongated filaments.

Habitat

The East Atlantic species is found along the coasts of Europe, but becomes scarce beyond 60°N latitude; it occurs also on the coasts of the Cape of Good Hope. The species caught on the North American side of the Atlantic is usually Lophius americanus. A third species (Lophius budegassa), inhabits the Mediterranean, and a fourth (L. setigerus) the coasts of China and Japan.

The black (L. budegassa) and white (L. piscatorius) anglerfish both live in shallow, inshore waters from 800 m to deeper waters (greater than 1000 m). These two species are very similar to one another with only a few distinctions between them. These include; the colour of the peritoneum (black for L. budegassa and white for L. piscatorius) and the number of rays in the second dorsal fin (L. budegassa, 9–10 and L. piscatorius, 11–12). Also, minor differences in their distribution occur. Black anglerfish tend to have a more southern distribution (Mediterranean and eastern North Atlantic from the British Isles to Senegal) whereas the white anglerfish are distributed further north, (Mediterranean, Black Sea and eastern North Atlantic from Barents Sea to the Straits of Gibraltar). Despite these differences, the overall distribution of the black and white anglerfish tend to overlap greatly. A map of the distribution of anglerfish in the waters surrounding Europe and North Africa can be found in the external links section. The movements of both species of anglerfish indicate a mixing of both northern and southern species could have strong implications for the geographical boundaries of the stocks from a management perspective.[9] Both species of Lophius are important because they are commercially valuable species usually caught by trawl and gillnetting fleets.

Concern is expressed over the sustainability of monkfish fishing. The method most commonly used to catch monkfish, beam trawling, has been described as damaging to seafloor habitats. In February 2007, the British supermarket chain Asda banned monkfish from their stores.