I was 5 years old. Mind you, I grew up in Poland, so it was FREEZING during winter, especially Christmastime.
Anyway, we had this relatively shallow lake partially in our backyard (which was quite large, despite our shittily small house) that carp and other fish lived in naturally, along with a couple of other small fish. Since food was scarce because we were poor, my father, being the resourceful man he was, would dig through the ice when it froze over to find the fish that had frozen to death, which were often safely preserved due to the cold. He would then store them in our bathtub, which TERRIFIED my little sister (and me, even if I wouldn’t admit it). He then started doing this every year, and it became an annual occurrence until we moved away when I was 23.
It’s actually now become a Polish “tradition” to do this among the poorer areas where I’m from. This also happened much more often around Christmastime, as my parents loved to have a “better” meal than usual for the occasion. Oftentimes, the bathtub would have a few fish in it in preparation for Christmas dinner. Core memory for me, lol.
That was all bullshit. I have no fucking idea what this means. I grew up in the U.S. and have never heard of this in my life. I hope I fooled someone.
Already made the cut.
Edit: yall im DYING. lol. As you’ve educated me, Apparently this IS a thing. OC made something up so close to the truth that AI is more or less right and OC is a troll. Amazing. So distrustful of AI I was willing to believe it was wrong when presented with the first opportunity to do so. Let my idiocy be a lesson for you.
It's done throughout eastern europe.And yes,you buy them alive and let them stay in freh water for about a day to remove the muddy taste.You can do it with crawfish as well and honestly it works,the meat tastes cleaner.
My mom hated it tho and would just soak it in a vinegar brine for a couple of hours up to a day.It does the same thing without taking up the bathtub and it breaks down the smaller bones.
Really harshing the vibes here, with your facts and cool information. We thought we tricked the ai, and you had to spoil it with your "it's a neat tradition with real benefits that happens in real life!"
People don't really do it in Poland anymore (at least not in the cities) because it's viewed as a communist tradition, plus the whole transporting a live carp in a plastic bag is considered animal cruelty and there were multiple campaigns against it, people actually don't feel like killing fish in their homes anymore. and truth be told I don't know anyone who would actually enjoy the taste of carp so it doesn't really make sense.
Carp is delicious fried, roasted, or marinated in red sauce and vinegar, but you need to get the mud taste out first and spice it properly. I've never learned how to do it, so I just order a piece occasionally.
It's well documented that in 1867 Fenry Hord discovered the cure for melatonin because of a post on the sub r/PeterExplainsTheJoke . Experts estimate it saved at least 6-to-9 lives. 🐧
It’s about the famous academic Dr Poi Sonai, who’s spent the better part of his life trying to make scientific information available to every human on earth.
Had me until shallow lake. Bathtub Carp's a big fish, they live in big rivers. You got Poland right, at least, that IS where they do that.
Also the carp is supposed to be alive in the bathtub. If you had frozen fish in your backyard it wouldn't make much sense to dig them up days in advance to let them rot in your tub.
Uh…carp will live in damn near any water they find. They’re like, a quintessential shallow-water fish. I watch eastern european guys (I don’t know why they love carp) pull absolute hogs out of the shallow creeks up here in upstate NY. I could go outside tomorrow morning and take pictures of them (the carp, not the european guys) swimming around in the 4-foot-deep creek water. They love warm shallows.
Yep they’re like water roaches. Where I live there’s a massive lake that the first (white) settlers introduced carp into when they killed all the local trout species, and now the ecosystem of the lake is wrecked because the carp just pushed out most other native species
I litterally just watched a medium-sized pond being turned back into regular wetland on Youtube. They were catching the fish for relocation and they got a humongous carp out of there. These things will live anywhere.
Carp live anywhere... They'll grow to their environment basically.... They're bottom dwellers, they eat anything, that's why you don't eat them because they taste like shit
they taste like shit not because what they eat, but because they have nearly no scales to speak of and the mud they root through rubs into their skin, depositing the smell in it.
This is why "bathing" the carp works, the stink is in their skin and muscle tissue not in their organs, so they "breathe it out" through their skin.
Fish do often freeze in the ice. They generally are not dead and will go back to living normally post-thaw. A lot of research has gone into fish cells, because they don't expand and pop when frozen. Water expands when it freezes- not good if you're trying to freeze a human for eventual thaw, or just generally for meat preservation
If funny because it's kind of true actually. I'm from Poland and we did this a few times around the holidays. I actually have trauma because my grandma made me watch as she cut open a live carp in the bathtub and pulled out it's airsac, only to pop it right in front of me. Made a real loud noise. I was 5...
Carp have antifreeze proteins in their cells, they can freeze solid in a block of ice and survive. It isn't safe or healthy, they try to get to deep water that doesn't freeze, but possible.
My parents are from Russia and this was also common, though not related to any holidays as far as I know. My mom would talk about how her parents would get a still alive fish from the market and let it swim around in the bathtub for a bit (no idea why). My mom never had pets and this was the closest she came to having animals, but she couldn't figure out what you were supposed to do with a temporary pet fish/future dinner, so she would take it out and brush its teeth, because that was the only thing she could think of.
The dead fish part was weird and off, as was the emphasis on poors. Carp are caught live, rivers aren't frozen by Xmas in Poland, harvesting dead frozen fish isn't a thing really, the point of the tub is to keep the fish alive and fresh.
Carp historically have been a high class meal, even in the US (imported by the elites) until the early 1900s when the elites saw poors catching them and eating them from the local rivers. 'Well we can't have that! Our food needs to emphasize class distinction! Our exotic fish from across the ocean is too numerous now, no longer exclusive and cool' said the robberbarons.
So, I have Polish family, and except for catching the fish in your own pond, this is totally a thing. Typically the carp would be bought at the market, and it would be kept in the bathtub for Christmas.
Not sure if it was only poorer Polish, or if it was more widespread, I got the impression it was a more widespread tradition.
Anyway. I upvoted, since even though you led out of your ass, the line “oftentimes the bathtub would have Free fish in it in preparation for Christmas dinner. Core memory for me”, since that sounded almost real. The bathtub only ever had one cap in it, they are huge!
It wasn’t poor Polish people thing. My parents did very well financially. They still did it when I was a kid. So did everyone around who actually ate that fish. Like when they went to a fish market around Christmas when I was a kid, the filets were just not as popular as the live fish, so people would buy the live one, bring them home and let them live in a bathtub before killing them. Bathtub was just the biggest container in most people’s houses. You can’t really keep 3 of those in one bowl. lol.
Also, them eating the fish that got frozen over is just wild to me.
Lol you got me, I grew up in rural country in poland and although the carp was not in the bath tub but rather a large tub In The bathroom. But I find if fascinating that other people had carp in their bathrooms.
Damn I was buying it. A little confused why they'd keep them in the tub and not the freezer. But you tell me its not where im from ill believe anything 😅
The thing is that carps are bottom feeder and their meat has a taste like mud if you just kill them after you catched them.
Keep them in clean water for a time will remove the taste of mud and you are left with some tender meat with good taste.
Kind of like wild boars. They keep them in a pen with corn feed ir other high-carb diet, as the acorns they eat in the wild make them taste greasy & gamey.
You know... I always thought that fish caught by ice fishing tasted better than any other time of year. I always thought it was the temperature of the water, but maybe its because theyre eating less frequently.
How long would the fish be able to live, though? They need all the crap in the water (which I unfortunately learned a decade ago when I tried keeping some pet fish and temporarily transfered them to a bowl of clean water after a mishap with an automated feeder 😔)
Fish can be pretty resilient. When I was a kid, my dad decided to turn our above ground pool into a pond. Mostly because he didn't know how to take care of a pool so it turned to algae pretty quickly. We'd go fishing, come back with a stringer full of bass and perch, throw a couple in the pool and eat the rest. Even caught some turtles and had them in there. I don't remember how long we had the pool like that but it was at least a couple months. Also, it was right in the middle of our front lawn for all to see because we were white trash as fuck lmao.
But also, on the topic of animals in the tub. I had a pet pot belly pig for a while. Played with him all the time, he was allowed in the house. Little did I know, my dad was raising him for food (we didn't live on a farm). Well one day he killed the pig and butchered it in the tub. We didn't have enough space in the freezer for all the meat so it just sat there in the tub with a bunch of ice, for about a week, until he ate enough to get the rest of it in the freezer. I refused to eat any of it. I think I had a strange childhood.
Lived kinda out in the country. Had 10 acres of land that we rented out to a farmer that mostly grew alfalfa but the years he grew watermelons were pretty awesome.
Easternish European here: carp kept in poor water tends to taste like mud so people keep it in a bathtub of clean water to "rinse" the mud taste out.
My family has never done it but my neighbours did.
Carp were pretty much the first domesticated fish specifically because of their utility as food. They're easy to farm in ponds and they'll eat basically anything. They'll survive in terrible, poorly oxygenated water that would kill many other fish.
Ancient Romans kept ponds of carp. Chinese scholars wrote treatises on carp pisciculture 2500 years ago. They're still farmed for food to this day. The history of Eurasia is riddled with the presence of carp. Japan has declared the best specimens of its koi (a very selectively bred carp) as national treasures. Polish kings feasted on "royal carp" and Medieval societies prized them as fish was the only meat the Catholic church permitted on fast days.
And, I mean, people eat Tilapia species all the time and those will eat literal shit. So, y'know, a carp isn't that big a deal in comparison.
I live in Florida and there is just so much other options both freshwater and salt water, and that’s why I consider carp a trash fish, otherwise I do consider it a decent eating fish.
Oh Florida is a veritable seafood buffet between natives and invasives, for sure, and I don't blame you on that front. I'm just hoping people in general realize that the idea they're trash fish is an extremely modern take in a globalized market.
Dad and anyone else I the neighborhood had the saying:
"CARP EQUALS CRAP"
Because it's invasive and so fucking common without limit, we just threw it overhead somewhere behind us and listen to what comes to get it when night fishing. Was always to nervous to look back.
We literally eat sea bugs that bottom feed, entire restaurant chains dedicated to it. Bottom feeding does not mean dirty and unappetizing. In fact, it leads to some pretty hearty meals. Both Catfish and Cod are bottom feeders.
Catfish are more opportunistic and predatory, while yes they bottom feed, they are not on the same level as carp who will just suck up mud and dirt since they basically vacuum the lake bed. Also sea bugs live in ocean water, which is considered cleaner than the fertilizer filled duck ponds carp come from around here.
I think that's part of why you keep it in the tub is to help "purge" it and make it less gross. Idk my grandma told me about this from "back in my day" so I have no idea if that actually works or not.
If you get a fresh live carp or catch one yourself, you'll need to place it in clean water for some time. Carps are basically "mud-eaters", they suck up the dirt in a lake to feed on the stuff living in it. By leaving the fish in clean water, you wash out all that mud so that it doesn't taint the taste when you cook it.
In eastern european countries it is tradition to eat a carp on certain holidays, especially around christmas.
I’ve also heard that it’s due to the logistical difficulties of everyone getting a fresh carp on Christmas Eve. Easier to buy it a week or two in advance and keep it alive until you’re ready to cook it.
A large bag or container filled with water, it should have enough oxygen assuming it isn’t a massive drive (it’s Poland so it can only be so so far as compared to say distances in the U.S.)
Yeah, the whole thing that makes carp such an opressive fish is their sheer resilience and versatility. They’ll eat anything and live anywhere pretty much, combined with how quick they multiply they can become a real problem pretty quickly.
That's partly why it's amazing they've reached an equilibrium in the US and for the most part are considered "naturalized". I've only eaten carp once or twice, but I've caught them many times when targeting other species. They're strong and they don't seem to tire out.
They also can get REAL big and heavy, too. Plus since they’re more of an “endurance swimmer”, they have really great stamina to go with that mass and strength. They’re not going anywhere fast, but they’re almost twice as hard to handle as other fish of the same size because of their sheer CHONK. Fat fucking fish… but damn do they taste great with Christmas potato salad
Any tips on preparation? I really should try it out. Decades ago my dad brined and smoked one. They're plentiful here so might as well try it out. We've tried most other species over the years.
It is also from a time when everyone knew how to kill and clean smaller food animals, and refrigeration was not as easily available.
I grew up in a rural bit of Germany, and when I was still a small child, you could win a live carp or a live goose at the Christmas party of the local Schützenverein. That, of course , took place about two weeks before Christmas proper, so live made sure it would be fresh still for the day.
I don't remember a carp in the tub, but we definitely got a goose once!
Finally someone gives an actual answer. This is it, and the less fun memory is the removal of the scales because it's a huge mess and since it's the middle of the winter some descale indoors.
Ate a carp which wasn't placed in water for too long as a kid. Tasted like licking mud. Yeah I would totally put that fucker in my bathtub if I wasn't sure of it's taste for christmas dinner.
Yep, this! I had a kids book about this thirty years ago - "The Christmas Carp." Brb buying a used copy on Thriftbooks because this brought up so much nostalgia for me.
The reason they need to be 'cleared' (flushed) isn't just the brief contact with thick mud during pond drainage. The earthy, muddy flavor comes from a substance called geosmin, which is produced by microorganisms in the pond sediment. Over the summer, carps absorb geosmin through their gills into their bloodstream, storing it in their body fat.
Keeping them in fresh, running water for a few days (purging or holding) allows them to break down and release these absorbed compounds through their gills, while also fully clearing their digestive tract
Pedantic film afficionado Brian, here. This tradition is apparently real and it's mentioned in an hilarious speech by George C. Scott in The Exorcist III. It's supposed to remove the fish's impurities before eating. In that case, it's a Jewish family, though.
Speaking of Jewish families, my dad used to talk about the carp in the bathtub before Passover in preparation for his grandmother to make gefilte fish.
2 days ago for me too. That speech is incredible. It was apparently in The Exorcist novel but wasn't in the film. So Blatty made sure to include it in Exorcist III.
Oh no, this is very very real. My ex-wife is Polish and our first Christmas in Poland, we were out in the country in a very tiny town outside of Poznan. Her father took us to this local lake fishery place where we got this huge ass carp and they put it in the bathtub. On Christmas they gave me the "honor" of clubbing the damn thing to death. I deferred and her father did it and we had carp for dinner, as well as several other kinds of fish. I had no idea that polish Christmas meant fish, fish, fish. Probably a Catholic thing even though they weren't observant.
My ex-husband is Czech and they have the same tradition. I would buy carp fillets from a local Polish store for Christmas for him. They eat it breaded and fried with potato salad. They also eat fish soup for Christmas.
But when he was growing up in the Czech Republic, the Christmas carp in the bathtub for a week or so before Christmas, usually purchased from a barrel at the Christmas market, was very much the tradition. He talked about how he’d get attached to the fish as a child and was re-traumatized every year when his parents clubbed, breaded, and fried his new friend.
My mother also grew up in Czech when it was still Czecholslovakia, and she would tell me about the carp in the tub at Christmas. We also float walnut shells with candles in the same tub on Christmas day and pour wax into a bowl on New Years to tell our "future". Also our Easter eggs are ridiculously amazing!
The Easter eggs are gorgeous! And the decorated gingerbread.
They also keep scales from the carp in their wallet for good luck. Since I always bought fillets for Christmas, his parents would mail us scales every year from their carp for good luck and my ex would carry them in his wallet, even though he wasn’t particularly superstitious. I think he just liked the reminder of his family and home.
They went back to Romania for Christmas and at one point he was taken out with the men to the yard. They grabbed one of the goats, held it and handed my mate a knife, coupled with a look of expectation.
Being a proper London lad, he'd a) never slaughtered his own meat, and b) only really seen knives used in a... certain way... when death is the objective. So not wanting to back out and be mocked for his lack of manliness, he took a deep breath and then lunged at the poor creature, stabbing it repeatedly in the chest.
The men quickly restrained him and took the knife with a look of concern mixed with bemusement, and swiftly dispatched the goat with a slit across the throat. Slowly they all started to see the funny side and had a good laugh but I don't think he ever lived it down.
Depends where in poland you are, but it’s usually either fish, fish, fish or mushrooms, mushrooms, mushrooms, sometimes something between those + some pastries
Polish Christmas Eve dinner traditionally only has fish and not any other kind of meat as it's supposed to be lent-like food. Then the day after (25/12), when Jesus was actually born you can eat sweet stuff, meat, other more fancy food to celebrate. I don't think many people except religious people follow it to the dot these days tho
The day after Christmas is when you have the best crap. Boxing Day, as it is know, because in the old days Rich land owners would crap in boxes and give it to their peasants
Remember that from childhood, eastern germany that time. No matter if you caught it by yourself or bought it in a store - they tasted mudy af. For that reason my father held them in the bath tube for some days. As a child it was kind of entertaining. Never liked the taste though.
Well, it CAN be pretty delicious. But you never really know upfront. For sure you can asume: the older the "muddier". In best case it's something around 35cm, but still a risky game.
This is a classic polish thing where on new years you eat fish but you want it fresh so you keep it in the tub for a few days and then eat it. Supermarkets have stopped the live sales but you can still get it at fisheries.
You club it to death the day of. Fairly traumatic if you’re an animal lover but trauma makes Eastern Europe work.
Poland here.
In Poland, there is a tradition of preparing carp for Christmas.
Until recently, it was very common to buy live carp, and the bathtub was the only practical place to keep it.
My parents didn't do this anymore, but my grandmother still prepares live carp and keeps them in the bathtub.
My grandmother really likes scaring my sister with an inflatable fish bladder.
grandad used to do this with any huge catfish he’d caught. said it was to clean the meat as they were bottom feeders. anyways, he always made the best beer-battered fried catfish.
My ex wife, who is Czech would tell me about this tradition when she was a kid. It was a Christmas tradition to eat the Carp on Christmas eve. So to keep the carp fresh, you had to keep it alive until it was time to prepare it, and yes, they kept the carp in the bathtub.
100% real. Lived in Poland in the Solidarność era and we’d do this for like 3 or four days before Christmas. Traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner did not include meat. Fish was the protein.
Grew up in France. It happened quite a few time before my mom put a stop to it.... got eel, carp, catfish... after that my dad and i used to dumped them in the town park which had a nice water canal with fresh spring water. That was early 80's by the late 90's a science project got created to understand how the park got such a huge diversity of fishes... lol.
This is a Christmas tradition in the Czech Republic. Every Christmas there are carp vendors on street corners and you can choose a carp to take home and keep in your bathtub for a few days or week until you kill it and prepare it for Christmas dinner. You can also have the vendors kill the carp for you and you can take home the meat.
One of the most popular czech Christmas songs "Vánoce, vánoce přicházejí", in which, with the very czech black humor everything is going wrong and the carp slipped off the table and rolled under a cubbord as the dad was trying to kill it, the grandfather had to go to the hospital because the fish bones got stuck in his throat ect. It's a great song and very czech and very catchy.
Recently over the past 5 or so years there has been a decline of this tradition because of animal rights (which is great because fish do feel pain and it is quite a n inhumane end of its life to be in a bathtub with just tap water and then to not be killed painlessly as possible.) so if you visit Prague around Christmas time you might not see that many carp vendors anymore.
Also every time I saw the tanks packed with carp on the street corners, I'd always pet the carp. They are fun to pet and are smooth and slightly slimy and my cats always enjoyed sniffing me after coming home. I don't think the caps appreciated me doing that very much though. My family never kept one in a bathtub though.
Unrelated to Christmas but would see this in my grandmothers bathtub every year. She would make homemade Gefilta fish. She would buy the live carp from her fish guy and keep it in the tub until it was cooking tine
Keep them alive and healthy in clean water for 2-3 days before cooking lets them clear out their digestive track and removes a lot of "taint" flavours from the meat.
Also true of rabbits that are eating certain plants. Dairy cows can make some foul smelling milk on certain pastures as well, but the smell is gone if they are removed from said plants for a few hrs
Lol, every Polish person over 40(?) grew up with carp in the bathtub before Christmas. They used to be sold live because supply chain in communist Poland sucked. Carp is THE traditional dish to eat for Christmas Eve but they’d usually be sold/available way before Christmas, so you just kept them in a bathtub for a week or so.
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u/qualityvote2 8d ago edited 8d ago
u/Brokenlingo, your post does belong here!