America has been losing its shit over snakeheads. All summer long my algorithm-led newsfeed has been alerting me to ominous headlines including “‘Horror movie’ snakehead fish that can slither on land invading Missouri amid fourth sighting,” “Voracious, invasive ‘frankenfish’ reeled in from Delaware River at Easton,” and “Snakehead Fish Found in Georgia: ‘Kill It Immediately.’”
Movie poster for Frankenfish (2004). Photo via IMDB.
This is nothing new. For decades, American media has been trumpeting hyperbolic reports of the dangers of snakehead and their potentially catastrophic impact on local ecosystems. Since the start of the millennium, fear-mongering missives have claimed the insatiable import is able to breathe air, walk on land and will stalk and attack pets and humans, to say nothing of their impact on fellow lake and river dwellers. Between 2004 and 2006, Hollywood even released three low-budget horror movies about them.
I first learned about the fish species from the 2003 non-fiction book Snakehead: A Fish Out of Water by Eric Jay Dolin. It details the fish’s 2002 release into a Maryland pond and the ensuing chaotic coverage of its potential proliferation in American waterways which was even referenced on popular TV shows including The Office and The Sopranos. Ponds were drained, waterways scoured and fishermen put on high alert to kill any specimens they found. Officials warned it could be an invasive disaster on par with zebra mussels in the Great Lakes or cane toads in Australia.
Image from a Vietnamese cooking video for steamed cá lóc. Photo via Bếp Vợ Nấu YouTube Page.
While snakeheads indeed remain a detrimental species for wildlife officials to manage with occasional individuals being identified and eradicated, they have not yet lived up to their horror movie depictions in America. Still, what a surprise to move to Vietnam and discover snakehead, or cá lóc, served with great regularity. From fermented cá lóc in An Giang to braised cá lóc in Bến Tre to steamed cá lóc in Đồng Tháp, I find it everywhere. Ubiquitous throughout miền Tây, where it is native and extensively farmed, I’ve had it grilled, deep fried, dropped into porridge, stuffed in bitter melon and served in hủ tiếu. Decidedly a southern fish, it is nonetheless available throughout the country and even one of several white fish used for preparing Hanoi’s popular chả cá Lã Vọng. And despite all this, I’ve yet to talk with someone here who is aware of the associations its English name has in my home country.
Bánh canh cá lóc (left) via Mia and khô cá lóc (right) via Dân Việt.
Not the cá lóc you think it is
For breakfast this morning, I enjoyed a bowl of bánh canh cá lóc here in Saigon. The flaky, meaty chunks of flesh bathed in a peppery bath complimented the chewy noodles for a fresh and light breakfast. While eating, I began to arrange this article in my head. I initially expected to linger over the theme of invasive species. I planned to compare how cá lóc lives harmoniously in the Mekong Delta’s murky rice fields, opaque lotus ponds and brackish rivers, yet causes calamity in America is similar to the story behind crayfish (tôm hùm đất). Wildlife officials in Vietnam have recently had to remind people that crayfish, often imported via China, is banned in Vietnam because of the potential for the shrimp-esque crustacean to get loose and outcompete native species. Yet, crayfish are perfectly common in the US and don’t threaten other creatures in its ecosystem there.
Photo of an invasive northern snakehead, or cá lóc Trung Quốc, captured in American waterway. Photo via US Fish and Wildlife Service.
I abandoned plans of exploring this theme of invasiveness immediately once I delved further into cá lóc. There are a lot of cá lóc in the world; more than 50 species spread across Asia and Africa. The one currently setting Americans on edge is the northern snakehead (Channa argus), native to Northern China, Russia, South Korea and Mongolia. Vietnam is not home to these cá lóc Trung Quốc.
Matters of species get more complicated when taking into account regional names for the same type of animal. In the south, the fish is called “cá lóc,” but known as “cá quả” in the north and “cá chuối” and in the central region. These terms can be used as a catch-all for different species unless further specified, which it rarely is on menus or product lists. But I promise not to let another Natural Selection feature devolve into an unpsooling of tangled naming conventions.
Illustration of cá lóc đồng or striped / common snakehead (Channa striata) via Wikimedia.
To keep it simple, know that Vietnam is home to numerous snakehead species including cá chuối hoa, or blotched snakehead (Channa maculata) which is native to northern Vietnam; cá chòi or dwarf snakehead (Channa gachua); cá lóc bông or giant snakehead (Channa micropelte); and cá lóc đồng or striped / common snakehead (Channa striata). These latter two are extensively farm-raised in the delta, with cá lóc đồng being the most common to encounter; when you see cá lóc on a menu or captioned in a photo, it is most likely referring to one of these two. And as I recently learned when speaking with a street vendor selling grilled cá lóc, locals arent necessarily aware which variety they are selling or that there even are different species of cá lóc.
While sharing a common ancestor, each species of cá lóc has evolved over time to fill different ecological niches. Cá lóc bông, for example, can grow up to 1.5 meters and weigh 45 kilograms. It is an apex hunter able to feed on even carps and ducks. Meanwhile, cá chòi often measures less than 28 centimeters and subsists on insects and tiny fish. Other than the obvious differences in diet, larger snakeheads tend to build nests near the water’s surface while the smaller ones are mouthbrooders, meaning fertilized eggs are kept safely in a parent’s mouth until they hatch. Regardless of the incubation method, parents defend their offspring ferociously, leading to their reputation as aggressive.
A fish fit for celebrations and sustainability
Photo of cá lóc being dried for sale. Photo via Báo ảnh Dân tộc và Miền núi.
An exciting element of southern Vietnam’s culinary landscape, cá lóc is also an important part of the nation’s economic growth and stability. Despite fluctuating prices, they are particularly vital sources of income for impoverished households. For example, they are integrated into initiatives in the Mekong Delta to advance more sustainable agriculture and land-use practices. Because they are easy to raise and popular as a food good that can be dried and stored, local officials encourage small-scale fisheries to supplement other income sources and protect against fluctuations in other commodity prices. It’s difficult to recognize them being raised in any specific body of water, but travelers to the region will frequently notice them being dried in the sun. Saigoneer was able to witness this first hand when we traveled to Long An to observe a WWF-implemented Climate Resilience by Nature project that saw farmers abandon the year’s environmentally ruinous third rice harvest and instead use the land for other small-scale business endeavors, such as farming cá lóc.
Photo of a farmer in An Giang feeding the cá lóc being raised in a pond formerly used to grow rice. Photo by Alberto Prieto.
While eaten throughout the year, on Ngày vía Thần Tài or God of Wealth Day, cá lóc takes center stage. On the tenth day of the first lunar month, people will witness the fish with a stalk of sugarcane stabbed through their throats being grilled on sidewalks and in markets all throughout Saigon. In addition to buying gold and burning votive paper to honor Thần Tài’s birthday and hopefully usher in a financially prosperous year, citizens feast on cá lóc.
The precise reason for the association of cá lóc with Thần Tài has been lost to time. Some theorize that it represents a rare extravagance held over from more impoverished days. Others claim it was selected because it symbolizes Thần Tài’s love of nature. Or maybe, others say, it simply is Thần Tài’s favorite food.
Cá lóc being grilled and sold for Ngày vía Thần Tài. Photos via Dân trí.
Whatever the specific reasons, the city absolutely turns out for cá lóc on the holiday. Astounding reports of its popularity fill local media every year. In 2022, one local vendor claimed to have imported 3,000 cá lóc from the Delta, totaling five tons for the day alone. To accommodate the leap in demand, shops call in dozens of extra employees and work around the clock. Predictably, the prices rise on this specific day, reaching VND250,000 for an average-sized fish weighing between one and two kilograms in recent years.
Vietnam’s common cá lóc and the dreaded northern snakehead, while different species, closely resemble each other in size and general appearance. And before I knew the difference, I would walk amongst the stalls of skewered cá lóc on Ngày vía Thần Tài, marveling at the idea of Vietnamese welcoming good fortune by dining ravenously on a fish that keeps Americans up at night. The cultural divide seemed stark. Perhaps, I thought, the clichéd adage “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” could be changed and abbreviated to simply “one nation's cá lóc.” But after learning about the many species that are casually called snakehead and how Vietnam’s cá lóc is an important income source that is even exported to America and sold under alternative names, the phrase should be “one nation's cá lóc is another’s white grouper.”
