What can defeat the Asian carp? A knife and fork

Feared as an invasive menace taking over U.S. waterways, the Asian carp is leaping onto tabletops in Kentucky’s finest dining establishments.

At Ward 426, the fish surfaces as “Kentucky Carp,” a $24 special browned in butter and served atop sweet potato puree with roasted fig jam and mushrooms pickled in balsamic vinegar.

Chefs are hooked at the Mayan Cafe, Harvest Restaurant, the Holly Hill Inn and Lockbox, 21c’s new Museum Hotel eatery in Lexington. Nearby, “Western Kentucky Silver Carp” outsells catfish whether grilled, fried, blackened or buffalo-style at Smithtown Seafood, chef Ouita Michel said.

Humans are the only predators capable of making a dent in the carp population, a fish so fertile it lays 1 million eggs a year, a starvation threat to native fish such as bluegill, crappie, bass and shad in 45 states.

“Their spawning habits are the killer,” Kentucky Fish and Wildlife fisheries chief Ron Brooks said of the fish that has proliferated since 1975 when some imported Asian carp escaped from their job nibbling algae from an Arkansas sewage treatment basin. “Everything else is getting crowded out.”

Chef Shawn Ward compares carp to scallops and Chilean sea bass. For white and meaty carp, chefs pay less than half the price of more expensive seafood such as sea bass.

“Anything you can do with a fish that you spend quite a bit of money on, you can do with carp,” Ward said.

Too often in the minds of consumers, Asian carp share the stigma associated with the common carp, a “trash fish” that roots in the mud. Asian carp average 45 to 70 pounds and skim plankton near the surface of Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake, feeding habits that account for its white meat, clean taste and low mercury content.