Species sheet · The Edible River
Tambaqui
It waits under the trees for the fruit to drop.
- Ribs grilled over embers (costela de tambaqui)
- In caldeirada, a stew with vegetables and coriander
- Fried in chunks with cassava flour
- Scientific name
- Colossoma macropomum
- In the water
- A big fish of the Amazon and Orinoco that spends the flood season in the drowned forest eating fruit and seeds fallen from the trees. Widely farmed in Brazil.
- Season & buying
- Year-round from farms; wild fishing closes during the spawning period at the height of the rains.
- Common length
- ~70 cm
- How to identify it
- Deep, rounded body, black lower half
Flat, molar-like teeth
Small adipose fin behind the dorsal
On the plate
Fatty, tender, sweet flesh, with meaty ribs that are the prized cut.
Avoid: Trimming the fat off the ribs before grilling: the fat melting onto the coals is what makes the flavour.
Its teeth crush rubber-tree and palm seeds; by scattering them through the flooded forest it plants the very trees it will feed on the following year.
In Umay recipes
One Umay recipe calls for it.
