Tambaqui is arguably the premier Amazonian food fish. Looks-wise, it is large and flat, up to a metre in length, and shaped like a big fleshy diamond. Now introduced beyond the Amazon, it can be sourced from aquaculture abroad – though not widely at the time of writing.
Barely qualifying as an omnivore, the tambaqui mostly feeds on fruit and nuts: it gulps them down from the water surface, then repays the kindness by dispersing their seeds as it excretes. The odd snail and insect rounds off its diet.
In the wild, the tambaqui prefers the clear waters of flooded forests – until it’s time to spawn, when it likes things rougher and migrates to whitewater rivers. This is, however, a fairly adaptable fish, tolerant of environments that are poor in oxygen and even mildly saline. Its ecology may depend on the habitat, and its colour too.
Tambaqui can be grey, or yellowish, or even reddish as glimpsed at fishmongers’ stalls (most likely in Manaus, the Brazilian city that is the main market for Amazonian foods). They may also sport a dark splotch that wraps around the abdomen and runs up the sides, a feature typical of a subspecies known as black pacu. The eyes are bulgy, the teeth sharp. The flesh is white and firm, ideal for grilling, with a sweetness widely credited to the fish’s fruit-based diet. Sea bass would make a good substitute.
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