Red Mullets

The family Mullidae is chiefly represented in the Mediterranean by the two species listed on pages 94 and 95, for both of which red mullet is the basic name – or rouget in French and triglia in Italian. The crimson colour is distinctive, the taste delicate and unique. There are tiny bones, but the enthusiast quickly learns how to eat his red mullet without this disturbing him.

The family also includes a couple of exotic members in the eastern Mediterranean: Upeneus asymmetricus Lachner, the golden-striped goatfish, and Upeneus moluccensis (Bleeker), the golden-banded goatfish. These goat-fish are Indo-pacific species which have migrated into the Mediterranean from the Red Sea through the Suez Canal. The members of the family which occur in North American waters and in the Caribbean area (where there are at least four species) are also called goatfish. The name is appropriate because the erectile barbels under the fish’s chin, when in the ‘down’ position, give it a goatlike appearance. Mullus barbatus does not come as far north as Britain, but Mullus surmuletus does; it is taken in fair quantities in the summer off the south coast of England, and indeed is present in the English Channel as a breeding population.