info. on razorfish

[Anne-Marie]

hi there i'm new at this and need some info on whether or not razorfish are edible. my husband and i are currently staying at moonta bay in south australia and have been scuba diving at port hughes off the jetty. there certainly hasn't been anything happening with the fishing side of things the past few days and when we are down diving we've come across dozens and dozens of razorfish and were saying to our friends if only we could eat those we would be laughing but none of us knew whether they are edible or not. i have just popped back into adelaide for a day and thought i would check on the net to see if there was any info on them but no luck. then i found this site and thought someone out there must know. hope someone can help me.
regards
anne-marie]

[kneedeep]

Gday. Razorfish can most definately be eaten. They have a round circle of meat in them which you pickle, absolutely beutiful. You will have to find someone familiar with it for the recipe, vinegar and water, I think. Well worth researching. Catchya, John.

[LYNDO]

Yum razor fish
my mouth's drooling already

They're delicious, you eat the white muscle just like you would eat the heart of a scollop we use to eat them by washing them in the sea water(the hearts) then pickling in a variety of ways eg; vinegar/water/pepper or vinegar/sweet chilli/ginger

We use to make a day of it collecting razor fish and blue swimmers using specially made long handle tongs to grab the razorfish with at low tide over on the west coast of sth aust.

But make sure you're wearing strong soled shoes when gathering them by hand or specially made tongs because a razor fish will slice straight through thongs/sandles etc.

I hope this helps cheers Lyndo

[smerl]

Razor fish are one of the things I miss most about South Oz. We used to spend a lot of time at Port Clinton getting them when the weather was too rough to get out far. Pickled, they are hard to beat.

One word of caution though. Be very careful if getting them by hand diving or snorkelling. They are very sharp. We used to use welding gloves. That was you can easily grab any crabs that come along as well. I have also seen quite a few blue ringed octopus's coming out of dead razor fish shells. Probably only more likely in shallow water though.

Cheers

Simon