Thyrsites atun

Thyrsites atun
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Perciformes
Family:	Gempylidae
Genus:	Thyrsites Cuvier, 1832
Species:	T. atun
Binomial name
Thyrsites atun (Euphrasen, 1791)

Thyrsites atun, the "snoek" or "Cape snoek", is a long, thin, perch-like commercial food fish belonging to the Gempylidae family. It is found in the seas of the Southern Hemisphere. It is also known in Australasia as barracouta though it is not related to the barracuda.

It can grow up to 200 centimetres (79 in) long and weigh as much as 6 kilograms (13 lb). It is found near continental shelves or around islands and feeds on crustaceans, cephalopods and small fish like anchovy and pilchard. This species will form schools near the bottom or midwater; sometimes even near the surface at night. It prefers sea water temperature between 13 °C (55 °F) and 18 °C (64 °F).

It is found off the coast of Namibia and the coast of the Western Cape and Northern Cape provinces of South Africa. It was originally called the "zee snoek" by Dutch colonists who arrived in the Cape in 1652. It is said to have reminded them of the freshwater pike (or snoek) they found at home in the Netherlands. The snoek is widely distributed in the colder waters in the Southern Hemisphere. It is found from Namibe in Angola to Mossel Bay in South Africa, off Tristan da Cunha in the mid southern Atlantic and off Western Australia, where it is call the barracouta, off Chile and Argentina (where it is called the sierra).^[1] Bluish-black on top with a silver belly, the snoek grows to over a metre in length.

As food

It is sold fresh, smoked, canned and frozen. It can be cooked by frying, broiling, baking and it can also be microwaved. It is also made and eaten as fishcakes in regions such as Japan. It is prepared most often by grilling, frying or smoking. It is oily, extremely bony (although the bones are large and easily removed from the cooked fish) and has very fine scales which are almost undetectable, making it unnecessary to scale the fish while cleaning. Snoek has a very distinctive taste. Though very popular in regions like South Africa, it was not so popular to certain generations of British residents during the Second World War due to it being considered a food item of deprivation. Canned Snoek was imported in large quantities into Great Britain and government marketing of the product was not successful and may have had a negative effect. In South Africa, it is caught and eaten in the southwestern coastal parts of the country. It is traditionally served barbecued with boiled sweet potatoes.

References

1. ^ "Snoek distribution map". Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. http://www.fao.org/figis/servlet/FiRefServlet?ds=subservlet&xp_banner=none&session=species&xsl=webapps/figis/subservlet/species/singlemap.xsl&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fao.org%3A80%2Ffigis%2Fkimsmaps%2Fspecies%3Fquery%3Dmap%2CsNames%2CcNames%2Clegend%26outformat%3Dxml%26layerid%3D2465%26pan%3DW. Retrieved May 06, 2011. 

• "Thyrsites atun". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. http://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=172372. Retrieved 18 April 2006. 
• Davidson, Alan. Oxford Companion to Food (1999). "Snoek". p. 731
• Froese, Rainer, and Daniel Pauly, eds. (2006). "Thyrsites atun" in FishBase. March 2006 version.
• snoek fishing in False Bay, South Africa circa 1976 - a selection of black and white images featuring local snoek fishermen at work.