You will often see these farm-raised swai fillets in the frozen food section within various grocery stores and supermarkets. Even though they are a species of catfish native to the rivers of Southeast Asia, it doesn't taste anything like any catfish I've ever had in America. In fact, they are basically tasteless! You will often hear people say that they are really mild and how you can add flavor by spicing up the breading or adding additional seasoning, marinades, etc., but com'on! Well, when I say something is mild or bland, I would hope that it would still at least include some taste, right? LOL!

I'm sure the wild-caught swai (also called iridescent shark for whatever reason) have more flavor than the farm-raised ones, but dang! I would much rather pay the extra few dollars and eat regular channel catfish from around here or some other flavorful fishes that are still fairly cheap like tilapia, pollock, etc. Oh, I've tried to eat the farm-raised swai fillets both baked and fried, but they still came out tasteless every time! Well, there were times that I did taste the breading and a bit of the seasoned salt, but no fish flavor! I suppose I can honestly say that they don't taste bad at all, since they have no flavor. I don't know... Maybe they are experimental fish that have been replicated via some molecular transport machine? Ha-ha!

As a side note, there is some growing concerns about the safety of this fish due to the way it is farm-raised for commercial use. Seriously, if it's going to be tasteless, it better at least be healthy, right? Anyway, I think a lot of the worries from consuming these fillets stem from obvious overcrowding and nearby pollution dumping into the waters they grow these fish at, but I found a really good article that covers all of that, here: Swai Fish: Should You Eat or Avoid It?

Related Post: http://perpendicularity.org/blog/2010/08/01/baked-or-fried-what-are-swai-fillets/ [Link is no longer active]

Image Credit: Creative Commons 3.0 License - Source = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridescent_shark

---End of Post "Farm-Raised Swai Fillets are Tasteless"