The Washington Post reported this weekend that escaped Asian “snakehead” fish are running wild in a Virginia tributary of the Potomac River. The hardy fish, which first started appearing in the American wild in Maryland a couple of years ago, have, naturally, resisted all of man’s puny efforts to eradicate them. Now, transported into a novel and predator-free environment, they threaten to overrun the Earth and destroy us all!

Well, not really, but it appears to be the usual imported-species ecological disaster:
The 300 snakeheads caught in a Potomac River tributary last month were more than an anomaly. They were proof, biologists say, that the predatory Asian fish has bred its way to the top of the river's food chain, and it is science's turn to adapt.

Leaping and fighting their captors' nets, the snakeheads caught in just a few days numbered more than four times the total ever found in the river -- evidence that not only are they thriving, but they also appear to be breeding faster than the river's most beloved game fish.

"I caught 62 in two hours, they were that thick," said John Odenkirk, a Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries biologist. The snakeheads, he added, "are growing very fast. The spawning season is very protracted and likely due to repeat spawning. It's not what we would have wanted."

Worse, he said, "there's not a lot we can do."

Having lost the battle to eradicate the snakehead, Virginia and Maryland biologists and federal wildlife officials have recruited a team of researchers to study its adaptation. They hope that the fish will find a place in the Potomac's ecosystem without damaging the other species there.

But if, as they fear, it begins to crowd out other fish, officials are searching for methods -- such as disturbing its breeding cycle or controlled culling-- to keep its numbers in check and prevent it from spreading to other waterways.
Well, this is serious indeed.

But there is a solution. Imagethief can report that, despite its nauseating and prehistoric appearance, the snakehead, known as heiyu, or “black fish”, in China, is fine eating. The flesh is firm and tasty, and the bones are manageable. In fact, I recently had a fine shuizhuyu made with heiyu.

For those not in the know, shuizhuyu is one of those Chinese dishes that never, ever makes it into Chinese restaurants in the USA. A Sichuan specialty, it literally means “water boiled fish” or “water cooked fish”. And it’s a bald-faced lie. It is, in fact, oil cooked fish. An order of shuizhuyu comes as a deep bowl in which the flesh filleted from the fish of your choice is suspended in hot vegetable oil infused with spicy red chilies and the little Sichuan peppercorns that turn your mouth numb. The flavor of those peppercorns is actually called “ma”, which means numb. The combination of the numbing peppers and hot chilies, mala, roughly translatable as "numb'n'spicy", is the distinctive hallmark of Sichuan cuisine. A typical order of shuizhuyu often contains a good liter or more of mala vegetable oil. It is not dish recommended for the calorie conscious, or people with bad cholesterol problems or fragile palates.

It is, however, dee-lish-us, especially if made with a nice, not-too-bony fish, such as a heiyu. The fish flesh picks up the mouth feel of the oil and the mala flavor. By god if it isn’t a oily, fiery patch of food heaven.

Of course you’ll spend the entire next morning on the shitter and blow out all the neighborhood windows, but that’s the price you have to pay to live on the culinary edge. (There’s also a beef version, but as one old, China-hand friend of mine told me, “That’s for wimps”.)

Now, it’s also come to Imagethief’s attention that Sichuan’s city of Chongqing, the self-proclaimed capital of shuizhuyu, and the world’s largest metropolitan area, has something over 30 million people. At the risk of making an understatement, that seems like a lot. Therefore, I propose the following:

The United States of America should propose to China the resettlement of five million Chongqing residents to the banks of the Dogue Creek, the Potomac River tributary that is currently suffering from snakehead infestation. This would have the following beneficial effects:
  • An economic boost to Virginia from the sudden influx of five million energetically mercantile Chinese citizens.
  • An opportunity for the residents of the greater Washington DC area to improve their Sichuanese dialect skills.
  • Deeper cultural understanding between the United States and China. If a reciprocal exchange is needed, we could easily arrange to send five million Texans to someplace in China in desperate need of people. Kashgar, for instance.
  • The transplanted Chongqingers will eat all the goddamned snakeheads, and they’ll open good shuizhuyu restaurants all across the Maryland – Virginia – DC corridor.
It’s a can’t-lose proposition. I await my tax-free checks from grateful federal and Virginia-state governments. They can be made out to cash, and sent to me care of this website.