Carp is my favorite fish for eating! It has excelent taste, not dry like f.e. salmon, not without taste like trout.
Also on christmas here (Slovak republic, Czech republic) is the traditional food.
There can be only problem with taste, when carp is living in marish (uliginose, miry) water. When carp is cultivated on farms, several weeks before consuming they are moved from fish pond to special fishpond with cold and clear water to clean up meat, to remove uliginose taste of meat.
Best weight fo eating is 2,5 - 3,5 kg - not much small bones and not old meat.
There is also possible to smother uliginose taste by right receipe. There are tenths receipes. If you are interested on them, just tell me, I wil translate some of them to english.
Some of the easiest receipe:
Clear carp (clear slivers) , pull them and tear out dorsal fin. Take stemer, infuse oil. Take carp, wash in cold water, than wipe dry. Then use spice (f.e.cumin, red paprika dust,...) and salt and crush down from outside and inside. Put carp to stemer and stemer put to cooking tube and bake.
Excelent food, mnam