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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Polish scientists have created crisps made from carp meat, describing them as “crunchy, tasty and above all healthy”. They hope the product can encourage the consumption of carp all year round in Poland rather than just during the Christmas period, as is currently the case.
Poland is, alongside the Czech Republic, the European Union’s biggest producer of carp. It accounted for over 20% of the EU’s entire production last year.
However, around 90% of carp produced in Poland are sold in the space of just two weeks leading up to Christmas Eve, when the fish is a central part of the traditional meal known as wigilia.
The finished product
Now scientists from the Faculty of Food and Agriculture at the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin are hoping to change that through a project titled “Development of technology for new and innovative carp products to ensure year-round sales of this raw material from aquaculture farms”.
As part of the research – which is funded with 3 million zloty (€692,000) from the EU’s European Maritime and Fisheries Fund – they have developed a recipe for creating crisps (or chips, in American English) made using carp.
“The list of ingredients needed to prepare this delicacy is not long: carp meat and starch (tapioca, not potato, so that the chips do not burst and increase in volume during frying), plus pepper, salt and a pinch of sugar,” they write.
The resulting product – which they call karpioki, a mix of the Polish words for carp and tapioca – is less calorific than traditional crisps with higher protein content and less fat, salt and carbohydrates, they claim.
If they were produced commercially, “karpioki could be purchased fried or as a semi-finished product for self-preparation (frying) at home”, say the scientists, who also shared a number of photos of the process of making the crisps.
In the past, many Poles purchased live carp in the build up to Christmas, sometimes keeping them in the bathtub at home. They were then killed and prepared fresh to be eaten on Christmas Eve. However, that practice has significantly declined, in part due to animal welfare concerns.
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
All image credits: Kamila Kozioł/ZUT
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
