Growing up fishing in America, I was always taught that carp were "trash fish" and bottom feeders, but I am under the impression that carp are highly sought after as sport fish in Europe and were brought to the US from there.
Are American carp really the descendants of European carp? What accounts for the difference in how they're perceived by anglers?
There are a lot of different varieties of carp.
The carp in North American, the common carp, is a terrible fish to eat. The meat is spongy, and tastes bad, and is full of intramuscular bones. Also, the carp are an invasive species that has hurt the populations of other fish, mostly by eating up a lot of the food. Carp are big fish, and they eat a lot. Their size can make them fun to catch though, so you do see more anglers fishing for them.
Anglers in Europe like carp because they're big and fun to catch, and they don't have a lot of the bass and sunfish that American anglers prefer to go after. The European (and Asian) carp are also smaller, and their meat is supposed to be more enjoyable to eat, but still not very good. Most carp dishes have a lot of spices and seasonings to cover up the carp taste.
There's two different types of carp fishermen.
Firstly, there's the East Europeans who eat them. Then there's the mostly British who catch for sport. There are thousands of Brits who go to France every year, where they seem to thrive, to catch common, grass and mirror carp, some of which can be about 100lb.
Some of the lakes in France pay a fortune for a prize fish.
I just learned about this in an environmental science class. Most of the carp in America came from Germany and spread throughout the country pretty quickly. There are lots of reasons that Americans dislike carp, including bad to eat, invasive, and lead to the decline of other species. Another interesting factor is that carp are one of the only fish to survive in heavily polluted waters. And as a bottom feeder, they tend to disturb the bottom and make the water even more turbid. People in North America then thought that carp were contributing to the pollution problem and were 'dirty', while in most cases it was just human activity polluting the waterways.
Everything people say here is true about common carp, bullhead carp, or grass carp. Silver Carp however, the ones that jump out of the water behind boats, have a white meat similar to Cod because they aren't bottom feeders like the others. I have eaten Silver Carp and it is good but there is still a Y bone in it.