The title to this thread references the fact that my school had a very active animal rightist community, and one of the least obnoxious things they did was stick PETA stickers on everything. One of these stickers said "fish are friends, not food." Naturally I dispute this, because even pet fish aren't really cuddly, let alone proper friends. On the other hand, fish definitely are food, and are delicious.
I'm thinking about this because I had halibut for the first time in years, and I had forgotten how amazing it is. Usually when I have fish I have something that I like and is cheap. In Turkey that was sea bream, in the US it's bluefish and catfish. (I didn't eat much fish in Korea because I had a bad experience with seafood in Korea early on.)
I find it hard to rank my favorite fish, because freshness plays such a role, as does price. So does preparation for that matter. (After I had fried catfish in New Orleans, it was almost a year before I could enjoy catfish I cooked myself again, since I simply cannot do as good a job of it as they do in Louisiana.)
Still, I'd have to say that my favorite fish is eel. And yes, I know that it's horribly unsustainable and I really shouldn't eat it eve, but it's so damn delicious. (And also it's mostly Japan's fault that the eel is endangered anyways. If nobody in America ate eel, it would likely still be endangered as long as we exported baby eels to Japan. Or so I rationalize it any rate.)
Any rate, I really haven't had a fish that I didn't like, except for shark, though some are clearly better than others. Flatfish (sole, flounder, sanddabs, and halibut) and catfish are awesome, especially fried. When it comes to saltwater non-flatfish, I only really love bluefish and Pacific salmon (except for coho). I also really liked Orange roughy, but then I learned how unsustainable it is, and unlike eel, I don't like it enough to keep eating it anyways.
I like tuna and mahi too, but in supermarkets they're usually previously frozen, and it tells (salmon is too, but most Pacific salmon seems to survive freezing pretty well). I like mackerel, but it's a pain to prepare (you can never get it in fillets; I think you're supposed to cook it whole), and I don't like it enough to wait. I also like sea bream, but I've never seen it for sale in the US.
I'm not a huge fan of New England's most famous catch: cod and haddock, but I love having them in fish and chips.
How about you guys? Who here enjoys fish? (Not seafood in general, just bony fish and sharks.) [edit: that clearly didn't work]