Species sheet · The Edible Ocean
Salema porgy
The only fish in Europe that can give you hallucinations.
- Gut and rinse very carefully, the gut carries the bitterness
- Grill it whole on the plancha, five minutes a side
- Serve with olive oil and lemon, nothing else
- In French
- Saupe
- Scientific name
- Sarpa salpa
- In the water
- Seagrass beds and shallow rock in the Mediterranean and east Atlantic, surface to 15 metres.
- Season & buying
- All year, best in winter when it carries more fat.
- Common length
- ~31 cm
- How to identify it
- Ten or eleven thin golden horizontal stripes along the flank
Small horizontal grazing mouth
Dark spot at the base of the pectoral fin
On the plate
White mild flesh, sometimes bitter depending on the algae it has been grazing.
Avoid: Never keep it more than a day: it turns very fast.
In summer, on some coasts, it grazes an alga that makes it hallucinogenic. Cases of ichthyoallyeinotoxism are documented, with visions lasting two days.
In Umay recipes
One Umay recipe calls for it.
