三鯬

"Guess what we have for dinner tonight ?" My mother made a curious remark when she was back from the wet market on the Sunday morning.

Of course I had no idea. "Let me have a look," and I went into the kitchen.

In there lay a suspicious-looking fish.

"Why, it's shan-li (三鯬) !" I cried.

And, in that evening, we were enjoying its tasty flesh - steamed and well seasoned with douchi (豆豉).

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I suspect most of you have not heard of shan-li (三鯬), which used to be very common in the Pearl River (珠江) estuary and is still occasionally found in our local wet market.

But, shan-li is the name coined by Cantonese only. The very same fish, when found in the estuary of Yangtze River (長江), has a different name - which you would probably be familiar.

It is Tenualosa reevesii (鰣魚).

PS. With a different name, the same fish is ten times more expensive in Shanghai restaurants. I must confess although I had tried both of them for many times, I never notice they are all but the same - not until I read Shi-Jing (食經) by Chen Mengyin (陳夢因) recently.