There’s a new way of eating tilapia. Other than serving the fish belonging to the cichlid family fried or grilled, it can be prepared tinapa-style.
Tinapa is smoked fish, usually using galunggong (blackfin scad) or bangus (milkfish). In Urdaneta City, Pangasinan to celebrate Tourism Month, food festival organizers held the Fastest Tinapa Eating Contest.
Past contests involved eating tinapang tilapia while last month’s competition saw contestants devouring tinapang manok (smoked chicken).
Meanwhile, tilapia as an ice cream flavor is nothing new. Some food artisans have already made such fish-flavored frozen desserts.
United Kingdom’s Fredericks Dairies produces the Fish and Chips ice cream which contains creamed cod fillet in a vanilla and pepper batter, according to Travel Tomorrow.
Vancouver-based Mister Artisan Ice Cream served limited edition smoked salmon ice cream sandwiches on the occasion of the 150th Canada Day in 2017.
The ice cream was made of smoked wild British Columbia salmon mixed with milk and cream cheese, and served between two cracker wafers, TT reported.
Miami-based craft ice cream shop Dasher & Crank came up with poached smoked Chilean salmon in a cream cheese ice cream base in 2020, TT added.
Interestingly, a tilapia version from the Filipinta Beauty cosmetics brand of New York-based multimedia designer Hana K. neither tasted like the fish nor like ice cream.
It’s obvious from the ingredients: Castor seed oil, cetearyl alcohol, lauryl laurate, olive fruit oil, hydrogenated castor oil, beeswax, Carnauba wax, hydrogenated soybean oil, Candelilla wax and colorant.
However, Filipinta Beauty’s Fish Ice Cream Balm has an ice cream scent. The lip ointment is inspired by the practice of Filipinos using ice cream tubs to store raw tilapia or other fish in a freezer.