While vacationing in Rome we went into a tratoria for dinner. They had a baked fish special, so I ordered it. What arrived on my plate was a whole tilapia with only the scales removed. It had not been headed or gutted.

I used my fork to pull back the skin and was pleasantly suprised at how easy it was to pick the meat off the bones. You need to be careful of the small bones close to the head along the back bone, but that is it. You get all of the meat with no waste at all, and it was wonderful! Talk about easy! This fish was way under a pound.

What this means is that you can harvest fish as small as 10 ounces and enjoy them without hardly any prep, once you get over having them stare back at you!

This puts O. mossambica on the menu! I am partial to them as they are so easy to breed. Their only drawback was their small size.