At one time or another I have sampled most of the fish to be had in the waters of eastern Australia.

As a personal view, the flesh of the carp seems of poor flavour, amorphous texture, and contains many small bones.

In addition, carp seem to have a far greater proportion of visceral matter than other species. Differently expressed, they seem to be largely offal. For these reasons they deserve a place at the bottom of any list of edible fish.

On the other hand, this species makes excellent fertiliser for the vegetable garden.

Please Ms Holland, if you have a procedure for preparing carp flesh to render it toothsome, kindly divulge your secret.

Ken Broome,

Gol Gol.