Winter is the perfect season to savor mullet roe

This year's abnormal climate has disrupted not only fruit seasons but also mullet roe.

"Love eating mullet, no need for pants," goes a Lukang proverb, showing the special fondness people in Taiwan, China have for mullet roe. Mullet, also known as the messenger fish, signals every year with the arrival of the Major Snow and Winter Solstice solar terms that mullet full of mature roe are about to arrive; unfortunately, as ocean temperatures rise, mullet have shifted further north, and good prices have led both sides of the strait to compete for them. Wild mullet catches fell from a peak of over 2 million fish in the 1980s to fewer than 200,000 by 2002.

Fortunately, people in Taiwan, China still have mullet farming that astonishes the world.

Mullet roe generally comes from four sources: farmed in Taiwan, China; caught in Taiwan, China; imported finished product; imported raw material then pressed and processed in Taiwan, China.

Among these, farming in Taiwan, China is concentrated most in Kouhu, Yunlin, accounting for over 60%, so last year we went to Kouhu, Yunlin to look for mullet roe.

In the usual method for making mullet roe, mullet must be farmed for more than three years to mature and yield roe. After winter sets in, fishermen begin catching test fish from the pond each day to check whether the roe has reached its most mature stage (wild-caught fish do not go through this process). Once the roe is mature, the extraction process begins immediately, with four people forming a production line: scoring, cutting the belly meat, removing the roe, and the mullet shell. Then, based on personal experience, the roe is placed in a ventilated spot and weighted down for pressing (if the temperature is too high it dries easily, and if the weight is not judged well it breaks easily). Once the moisture is removed, it is finished according to each maker's method.

The belly-meat cutting technique unique to Yunlin is intended to show at a glance that this is locally produced with an authentic mark. At the same time, imported mullet roe, because of long-distance transport, is prone to spoilage if it has an extra piece of meat, so the presence or absence of belly meat is a identifying feature.

"When producers in Yunlin first started doing this, they were criticized by the trade, who said it was to increase weight," said Chen Ching-yi, author of "Taiwan Flavor," with a smile.

But in fact, for connoisseurs, this piece of belly meat is where the delicacy lies. The meat head cured along with the roe has a special salty aroma, and whether eaten as a drinking snack or crumbled into fried rice, it is an extraordinary delicacy.

However, local producers also told us that some people on the Chinese mainland have now learned this method to confuse buyers.

Mullet roe can be said to hold a status in Taiwan, China comparable to that of mangoes, both being distinctive local specialties. Unfortunately, however, there are no clear standards or specifications, which, besides making consumers always anxious when buying, is a great harm to the long-term development of the industry and to the preservation of mullet roe cuisine and even culture.

Deliberate ambiguity and price speculation built on consumers' lack of understanding is a short-term operation that kills the industry's future development. Only by establishing things like traceability and production certification, so consumers can understand every purchase they make, can there be truly long-term development.

So we found Wang Kun-he, director-general of the Yunlin County Aquaculture Association. Together with Mr. Chuang Kuo-hsien, who has won multiple national mullet roe competition awards, he developed a new method of producing mullet roe.

First, there is integrated production management from farming, processing, and frozen shipping. They also pioneered a sashimi-grade method of bleeding the fish immediately upon landing at the pondside. At the same time, they abandoned open-air sun-drying and built their own freezer for low-temperature pressing. As soon as you enter the freezer, the chill of the extremely low temperature hits you in the face, and inside, pieces of mullet roe are laid out one by one on wooden boards.

"Pressing at low temperature has several advantages: it avoids open-air wind and sand exposure, at low temperature the mullet roe has no risk of spoilage, and most importantly, because of contraction it can be pressed more firmly."

But relatively speaking, this revolutionary method first requires replacing endless sunlight with electricity bills. Next, exactly how long to press and how much pressure to apply in a low-temperature environment all had to be figured out on their own. After all, in the traditional method, just the pressing step alone takes 5 or 6 years to learn.

Chuang Chi's mullet roe is low-temperature pressed, while the higher-grade Xiancai adds one more step: the mullet is bled immediately after being caught, making the finished mullet roe more translucent in appearance and better able to show the original flavor of the roe when eaten.

But care always comes at a price. In addition to winning awards from local to national competitions after passing one hurdle after another, whether at last year's mullet roe event or at the "Meeting Mullet Roe at Dadaocheng" event on 11/26, everyone who tasted it was amazed: "How can it be this delicious? Is this really mullet roe?"

It lacks the remembered fishiness, heavy flavor, and lingering aftertaste in the mouth. Instead, there is a fresh seafood fragrance, a direct stickiness to the teeth, and, after chewing, the translucent flavor of the roe.

And besides mullet roe, Xu Cheng-yu of Upwelling Ocean brought us another way of imagining mullet.

"A mullet with its roe and swim bladder taken out is just an empty shell, so at the production site it is called a mullet shell, only 40 yuan per kilogram and hardly anyone wants it; but mullet raised in seawater not only has better-tasting roe, the fish can also be used for sashimi." Xu, who has insisted on sustainability since founding Upwelling Ocean, said on stage. "Actually, if you think about it, this is very unfair to the mullet. Humans raise mullet to take the roe, and then once the roe is taken they discard the mullet like worn-out shoes."

Moreover, with today's improved farming techniques, mullet is clearly delicious!

Whether it was the mullet ichiyaboshi steamed rice provided on site or mullet smoked using the shark-smoking technique, the refreshingly good flavor was eye-opening.

"In particular, mullet is herbivorous, easy to farm, and fast-growing, so it is absolutely a fish very suitable for human consumption."

But beyond that, you can be even more luxurious by crumbling mullet roe over mullet ichiyaboshi steamed rice to make a mullet parent-and-child don!!!

Smoking mullet using the shark-smoking technique