Back in the late 1990s, pirarucu (Arapaima gigas), one of the world’s largest freshwater fish, was thought close to extinction. Twenty years later, thanks to strict management programmes involving Brazil’s Indigenous communities, stocks had soared nearly tenfold to almost 200 000 individuals. Fishing of the pirarucu – a Tupi word; the fish is known across the border in Peru as paiche – is only permitted in the second half of the year, the non-mating season. The centralization of sales through a cooperative also means local fisherfolk are paid twice per kilogram what they would raise from selling directly to local markets. Even so, poaching remains rife, and connected to broader criminality and environmental destruction.
A carnivorous predator, pirarucu is an oddity on multiple counts – in size certainly, coming in at up to 3 metres and 200 kilograms (though more commonly found at around half that). But also in a number of quasi-fantastical traits: it has a python-like body; a tongue studded with teeth; and a capacity to breathe by swallowing air, like humans. This exceptionalism echoes through Indigenous legends that cast the pirarucu as a warrior, given piscine form in defeat.
Seen whole, the pirarucu looks semi-reptilian. The head is bony and sits small on the body: it appears anatomically mismatched, in the way children’s drawings are. Underneath a sheath of piranha-proof skin, peppered with red, the flesh has a pleasing rose tinge. Analysis of the pirarucu’s dorsal and ventral muscles by Brazilian nutritionists has revealed the presence of 27 beneficial fatty acids – and with stocks back at healthy levels, the fish has cropped up on hip restaurant menus in Brazil’s coastal cities. This remains, that said, a highly local species: it is essential that it be cooked in its homeland, with guaranteed traceability; or, if replicating pirarucu dishes abroad, that it be replaced with a sustainable alternative. Cod would do well instead: although a river animal, the flavour of the pirarucu is more akin to that of oceanic equivalents. Early European settlers, in fact, dubbed the pirarucu “Amazonian cod”. They found it lent itself to salting and drying just as well as bacalhãu.
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