While invasive Asian carp have become a problem for Midwestern rivers in the form of living missiles, researchers are hoping they’ll soon to leap onto dinner plates. This article from the University of Missouri says a professor in Mizzou’s School of Natural Resources says if you can’t beat ’em, then eat ’em.

With help from a Mizzou Research Council grant, [Mark Morgan] and his research team have identified a commercially viable boneless carp product, conducted a taste test on campus, compiled tasty carp recipes and test marketed the product at local restaurants and grocery stores. His mission now is to get people to overcome their reluctance to try the fish.

He’s confident that he will have diners hooked. The creation of a commercial carp fishing industry on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers could help control numbers of the troublesome fish.

Morgan says while there’s a great need to stop the carp from invading areas and choking out billions of dollars of fisheries, he admits that getting consumers to choke down the fish is pretty tough. The bony carp are hard to eat despite tasting quite good. Morgan’s solution has been to come up with a way to use a wire mesh to separate the skin and bones from the tasty flesh to make into ground carp to be made into burgers.

“Think of ground turkey,” Morgan said. “With only a slight fish flavor.”

At $1.99 a pound, it costs substantially less than ground beef, making getting the fish out of the fisheries and onto the grill an increasing possibility and taking the Asian carp from an ugly, leaping invasive pest to a great meal.

“Carp won’t win any beauty contests and that’s a problem,” Morgan said. “They’re kind of ugly. The only way to get over the fear of eating carp is to face it and eat one.”