Emin Teskeredžić, a Zagreb native from Radićeva Street, where he was born 78 years ago, is the greatest aquaculture expert in Croatia. He was that even in the former state, against which he eventually fought for four years, and remains so to this day in the entire region, because how else to explain that he is still sought out for advice on any aspect of fish farming. It‘s not surprising: in 1980, Mr. Teskeredžić founded the Laboratory for Aquaculture and Fish Diseases at the Ruđer Bošković Institute. He is a scientist with more than three hundred papers, cited countless times in professional publications worldwide. Since 1976, he has owned a unique fish farm in Gračani, in Zagreb’s foothill area, which is not well-known enough among Zagreb residents, but should be, because it’s hard to find better and fresher fish than this trout anywhere. In addition, since 1996, he has held the concession for the fish farm in Knin, right below the very spring of the Krka river and the Krčić waterfall. There, he transfers young fish hatched in Gračani, and then after a few years, when they reach market size, which can be measured in kilograms, part of the fish are returned in a special oxygenated tank to where they will swim once more in the water from which they came.
Emin Teskeredžić’s whole life is reflected in clear waters, fast and calm, fresh and salty. When he was 20, he built by hand the speedboat he still uses today for summer holidays in Osor. As a young man, he supplemented his budget by diving for sponges throughout the Adriatic. He was the champion of Yugoslavia and a national team member in spearfishing. There is no fish farm in the former state that he hasn’t visited, and he participated in the development of many. He cannot live without water. Even today, every afternoon he spends several hours in the pool at the Westin hotel – it makes life with the consequences of war less painful, more bearable. Water is his life, and fish are his friends. On top of all that, twelve years ago, at the foot of his house in the very center of the city, overlooking the Cathedral, he planted a vineyard that slopes steeply toward Tkalčićeva Street. From chardonnay and pinot noir he makes some sparkling wine for family and friends, and he pasteurizes must, which he himself likes to drink most.
We have already written about Mr. Teskeredžić and his Gračani fish farm, and now we joined him on his regular monthly tour and inspection of the Knin fish farm where his beautiful fish live and grow.
We arrive in Knin before noon. The day is clear, although the forecast was bad. "It’s always like this," says Teskeredžić, "that’s now a running joke among my employees. They say, boss Emin is coming, the weather will be nice. And I just raise my finger and say: I made a deal with the one upstairs. In the last five years, I definitely haven’t been here in bad weather. I can only say that here, at the fish farm, it has always been nice, and I’ve been here since 1996. They offered me to buy it then for one kuna, but that didn’t seem fair to me. I already have my own fish farm, I thought, and I’ll lease this one to put it in order, it’s a shame for it to go to waste. It was, in fact, neglected, everything had to be rehabilitated first, diseases eradicated… Yet this is the fish farm with the cleanest water in Croatia."
At the Krčić fish farm, named so because it is only about 200 meters downstream from the Krka spring, where the 22-meter Krčić waterfall crashes down, ending the journey of the karst stream of the same name, we are met by Frane, one of three employees. There is also a frighteningly huge but actually good-natured two-year-old cross between a Šarplaninac and who knows what other large breed, maybe a Kangal, and from somewhere appears the limping old dog Rudi – who still diligently announces customers coming for fish. Soon, the other two employees, Željko and Robert, join us.
Emin Teskeredžić is here today to take samples and weigh trout, which are sorted by pools by species and age, and to make an expert assessment of whether their diet should be increased, reduced, or adjusted for the next month. No one could do this better than him. Maybe no one cares as much, either. But when you see his trout – how long and harmoniously built they are, plump and firm – you know the boss has laid out the best Swedish table for them.
The fish farm is located right next to the flow of the Krka, which here just starts its journey to the sea. This is very important because the water temperature near the spring, where the water emerges from the karst, is the same all year round – about 10 degrees, and it doesn’t have time to warm up. It’s the same in Gračani, where ice-cold water that springs literally 30 meters away flows through the fish farm.
"That is crucial for growing quality fish. If you compare our trout with those imported – from Turkey, Italy, Spain – and that’s at least 50 percent, you’ll immediately notice the difference. They have small heads, wide bodies, and their flesh is soft, not firm like this. That’s because they grow quickly, in warmer water, with a large number of fish per cubic meter, on who knows what kind of food, probably even hormones. These trout from cold water, fed the highest quality food, live at least two, three, four years before going to market, especially our native, brown trout. And they live comfortably – there are at most 10–15 kilograms of fish per cubic meter here, which is far below the average for EU fish farms. Because if there are too many fish in a small space, they get injured, so you need antibiotics… In our fish farm, fish mortality is low; more people die in Zagreb in a month than trout in Krčić," says Teskeredžić.
The healthy condition of the fish is obvious at first glance: as assistants Željko and Robert pull them out of the pool for weighing, they shine in the sun, full of strength. Even though it’s a working day, Tuesday, every now and then a buzzer is heard from the fish farm gate – someone is announcing they’ve come to buy fish. Rudi is probably napping. People from all over the area come here for family lunch, and restaurateurs from surrounding restaurants, not only from Knin but also from Split, Šibenik, and the surrounding area, regularly source here.
"We sell about 20 tons of fish here annually, twice as much as in Zagreb, where our only sales point is now at the fish farm itself in Gračani. The rest in Zagreb is taken by better restaurants that care about quality: Dubravkin put, Noel, Sol, Skenderica, this Viennese restaurant in the neighborhood..." says Teskeredžić.
Eggs for young Californian trout arrive from California, and the native brown trout they managed to breed in Knin themselves by controlled fertilization. They offer three types: brown, Californian, and salmon trout.
"Californian and salmonized salmon trout are actually the same species (Oncorhynchus mykiss), but salmon trout, because of a diet of small crustaceans, has pink flesh. The Californian trout was first introduced here back in 1892, when the first specimens were stocked in our Queen’s Well. Its real Croatian name is ‘dugičasta pastrva’ (long trout), for the same reason it’s called ‘rainbow trout’ in America, because of that lateral line in rainbow colors. We just forgot that, so now we call it Californian. We bred brown trout ourselves, mixing the eggs of females with the milt of males. We do that here, in the Krčić fish farm – it’s a delicate process, but we succeeded. Brown trout is now in high demand, people have recognized its extraordinary, firm flesh which is a real delicacy. In addition, we also offer smoked trout, but in Zagreb where we have the facilities for that," explains Teskeredžić.
Krčić is one of 17 trout fish farms in Croatia. They produce about 300–400 tons of fish in total, with a capacity of about 800 tons. In recent times, Krčić produces 30–40 tons annually, which is little compared to 2010 when they produced 110 tons.
In addition to having the cleanest water at a stably low temperature, Krčić, with its 20 pools for young fish and 30 pools for further growth, also has three large settling basins – special pools where fish waste settles so that the water returned to the Krka is clean. The pools are covered with nets to protect from birds that cause the most damage: herons and cormorants. The heron is enemy number one, it attacks even at night, although the otter also plunders here. Once, nets were directly above the pools, but they had to be raised higher because those cunning birds would sit on the net and sink it with their weight – and the fish harvest could begin. Interestingly, the victims were Californian trout, which stay near the surface, while the brown trout would hide at the bottom. The damage was enormous, predators would eat up to 30–40 percent of the fish. Raising the nets higher so the herons couldn’t reach the prey, they had to pay for themselves.
On the Knin Fortress, a symbolic place in recent Croatian history, there is a restaurant of the same name with a fantastic view of the city, the surroundings, and Dinara mountain in the background. While we drink cold Kraljevsko beer, pale ale from the only craft producer in Knin, from the terrace we look at Krčić – it seems to us it’s shrinking. Soon it will dry up, and return in the autumn with the first rains, they tell us. Luckily, the water for the fish farm doesn’t come from Krčić, but from the Krka spring, which never dries up.
The restaurant is run by Josip Zore, and they also offer trout from Krčić. Zore says that in season, a third of all meal orders are for trout. What he prepared for us is not on the regular menu, except by special order. In season, there’s no time for that, which is not surprising – these dishes belong on a tasting menu anyway.
Josip Zore, who as a high school hospitality student in Split in 2007 drew attention to himself by winning a competition at Idee Golose in Sanremo on the topic of presenting his homeland with local ingredients, with a cake made of almonds, carob, and figs, prepared a four-course lunch for us featuring trout from Krčić.
The first course was a cold appetizer: rustic-textured trout pâté, served on traditional bread rolls, with marinated trout liver and roe on top. Very tasty.
Next was trout soup with barley and celery, and our pressure on the chef: you have to put this on the menu, it’s that good. Such a dish is not often found on restaurant plates. The soup was excellent, aromatic and powerful, and the barley perfectly cooked. The brown trout meat, firm and resilient, was outstanding.
On the third plate was now smoked trout, in a risotto of black wild rice. The aroma was further enhanced by a sauce that, although silky in texture, also brought a pronounced smoky note.
Already quite full, we quenched our thirst with Bibić’s Debit, while the main course arrived: salmon trout fillet in a sauce of dried figs and coriander. Alongside, there was a variation of a local side dish, but instead of chard, young onion was stewed with nettle. And a crispy trout skin chip, for which – an important note – you don’t need to wash off the slime or scrape the scales. The pink flesh of the salmon trout was juicy, perfectly cooked, and the portion was plentiful, even too much. A unique lunch at Knin Fortress, unlikely to be repeated, came to its end, and there wasn’t much sunlight left in the day. Krčić is also fading, visibly, tomorrow it might not be here anymore. It’s time to go home, where tomorrow, or the day after at the latest, we’ll head to Gračani for the finest and freshest trout we can imagine. There is, in fact, no other European city where, just 10 minutes from the center, you can get such top-quality noble live fish.
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