CARBONDALE, Ill. — Southern Illinois officials, thanks in part to $1.1 million in state money, want to put Asian carp on dinner plates throughout the United States.

Just as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is fighting an uphill battle to keep the invasive species out of the Great Lakes, leaders with the Fisheries & Illinois Aquaculture Center at Southern Illinois University want diners to know these fish make for a tasty dish.

“We have a problem (the fish as invasive species) here in the U.S.; however, Asian carp are palatable, relatively low in contaminants and abundant,” said James Garvey, director of the center. “A large proportion of the world’s population considers them to be a desirable fish. After all, they are the most aquacultured fish in the world.”

China consumes the most Asian carp, a large, bony fish that has a mild flavor and a texture falling between that of a crap and scallop, said Louisiana-based Chef Philippe Parola. He participated in a two-day cooking demonstration recently in Carbondale, at the center’s request, and is scheduled to participate in another in Chicago Sept. 28.

“This fish is the best-kept secret in the market. It’s extremely healthy and it can be prepared so many different ways,” Parola said.

The main obstacle to creating a commercial market, the chef said, is to find a way to debone the fish efficiently. And Parola said he has come up with a way, based on existing U.S. food preparation processes, to make 40,000 pounds of the bony fish a day at a single facility.

Introduced to the U.S. through farming in the late 1970s in the South, Asian carp found a way into waterways, including parts of the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois rivers. They are notorious for crowding out native species, the main reason they are unwanted in U.S. waterways.

The Corps for about two years has maintained electric barriers in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, the link between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River system, to keep the carp from entering the Great Lakes. The Corps announced last week it would turn up the juice on the barrier network.

Also, the federal government has earmarked $125 million toward the continuing effort to protect the Great Lakes.

Part of SIU’s grant work will include determining whether a production industry for the carp is viable. One of the key stumbling blocks may be changing the public’s perception of how they view the odd-looking creatures.

Another is its name; changing carp to “Silver fin,” for instance, is an idea under consideration.

“Would people be more likely to try it if it was called that? We really don’t know the relative importance of those issues, so this will be the first time they are scientifically measured,” said Silvia Secchi, one of SIU’s researchers for the project.

Garvey hopes the research answers questions about the fish’s true numbers in the Illinois River and how its basic population dynamics work.

“Without grasping this, we cannot determine how much fishing effort is necessary to fish them to become functionally extinct and to get them from expanding toward the Great Lakes,” he said.