Last Sunday my raw paleo diet friend E and I drove 9 km down to the town of Talisay. Talisay is one of the towns beside the Taal volcano lake. Here we saw authentic Tawilis fish – a species found only in Taal Lake.
It has been said that many years ago of I don’t know how long, this volcano had exploded to create this lake and be sealed off from the rest of the ocean. This allowed taal lake to develop its own unique ecology powered by freshwater and nutrients from Taal volcano.
I asked the wet market vendors about their authentic tawilis fish. Why the tawilis fish in Cubao and Marikina wet markets looked different… they said that was some other species being sold off as “tawilis”… fake tawilis… not from Taal lake. Obviously, these Talisay wet market vendors are the authority because they live here by Taal lake!
Of course I tasted one raw Tawilis fish plus the head. Very very good. Back at home, they were lightly grilled and everyone agreed that these authentic Tawilis fish tasted really good, much better than the fake tawilis of which I had stopped buying for some time because those didn’t taste good at all.
I’m pretty sure you can find some authentic Tawilis in your wet market sometimes. So as reference, here are some pictures for you to compare. There are also pictures of the view of Taal volcano and taal lake from the edge of Talisay market.
Tawilis are lake wild fish, fresh volcanic water fish. They are never caged.
