Fish Fry

[WV Sawmiller]

  My wife is a retired school teacher and a bunch of her co-workers who retired about the time she did try to get together once a month for a lunch somewhere. Usually it is at a local restaurant. Sometimes we each just grab something and meet at a local city park on the edge of the Greenbrier River just a few hundred yards below Bluestone Dam on the New River.

    I try to sponsor a fish fry 1-2 times a year. Usually here at home but today we decided to meet at the park because one of the members husband is now in a wheelchair and my home is not set up for handicap access with a ramp and such. Also one member rarely comes but she lives right next to the park and she tends to come when we have it there. She is a real sweet lady and we always enjoy her company.

  I thawed out about 10 lbs of catfish fillets and fried them just before the lunch. I use a deep turkey cooker with a drainer inside and can cook 5-6 lbs of fish at a time (probably more if I tried it) in about 2 gallons of corn oil. I cook them and store them in a small ice chest which keeps them hot till we are ready to eat. Today I also cross cut 10 plantains into 3/8 rounds and nukked them and I baked a couple dozen frozen hushpuppies and my wife cooked a big pot of grits. Everyone coming brought a side dish or dessert and other sides today included BBQ beans, cole slaw, mac & cheese, watermelon, fresh tomatoes, and brownies.

  We have a real good friend whose wife is in the hospital. He can't see well enough to drive now. He loves fish and lives close to the park so we invited and picked him up. He knew everyone there and fit right in. We also invited  our IT guru who is out daughters age, most of the teachers were his customers and he had them in school so he popped by and fixed a plate for him and his dad. Everyone enjoyed seeing him again too.

  I had a crate full of picnic supplies like plastic silverware, paper plates and bowls. throw away table cloths and [a[er towels as well as tarter sauce and condiments. I also bring foam clamshells so people can take home leftovers and to vacant spouses and such.

  I think we had 16 people there and had a great meal and a good time under an open shelter with a nice breeze and nice picnic tables and facilities.

    We all had plenty to eat, several took home plates and such so we got rid of most of the leftovers. When I took my friend home he had an HVAC crew working on his ductwork and I asked them and they took the last few helpings of catfish.

  It was a real good meal and a good day.

[SwampDonkey]

That's some good eat'n among friends.  I'm from the north, but I've eaten catfish. In fact, ate it up north at Jeff's pig roast. Member fishfarmer treated us all to a feed. 


I have caught wild catfish here, but it is rare, and it was only one, not all that big either. It was at a dark watered stream we call the Dungarvin, the water is as black as coffee in there. It's actually a salmon stream. It's black water since the water comes mainly out of spruce bogs and dead waters with surrounding peat bogs. My brother has a small pond, he stocked it recently with catfish. He also likes frogs and tadpoles, so they are stocked in there to (not to eat).  I have toads here that hang out in the tall grass, my brother mowed it with the bush hog and found a toad, he had to get off the tractor and relocate the toad.    I here toads at night, sometimes they sound like a small bird, other times they are like toads. I have no open water, but some toads will incubate their eggs inside themselves and have live babies.  Now how did we get onto toads?

[WV Sawmiller]

   I don't know how we got off on toads either. We never get off the original topic on these posts. 

    I assume your blackwater streams are because of the tannic acid in the water from falling leaves and the spruce bogs you describe. I have seen Blackwater streams here in the USA, in Africa and tributaries to the Amazon in South America.

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, and the brook trout up here I've noticed develop a different color, even their fins, compared to crystal clear spring fed brooks. The dark water trout will have a pink underbelly and the clear water ones are white. The largest trout I have caught were in dark water. Some bodies of water you wouldn't imagine a trout would live, often beside a road, where no one bothers to fish.  

[WV Sawmiller]

  Well the system ate my last reply. I hate it when that happens. I think SD's swamp brookies did it.

  We always discussed catching a big stringer of fish then go fish by the road as you mention (but in a place where there have never been fish) and when people come by and heckle us just raise the stringer and go back to fishing. The next time you come by that guy will be fishing there.

  I like cooking for groups like this but it gets real hectic when cooking several different dishes so they all come off at the same time. I'd prep the different items then start. I'd run out on the porch and start the cooker going then as the oil heated I'd be mealing the fish. When ready I'd add the fish then while they cooked I'd run back in the house and tun the oven on to pre-heat, open and put the frozen hushpuppies in a shallow cooking pan, run back out and check, drain and empty the first batch of fish, put more on to cook, run back in the house and put the hushpuppies in the oven and throw a plate of plantains in the microwave and set them cooking. Run back outside, meal up the next batch of fish, stir, drain and empty the next batch of fish and start another one cooking, run back in and remove the plantains and put the next batch in to cook, plate up the first batch, take the hushpuppies out of the oven and plate them, run back and empty up the fish and put the last batch on to cook, run back in and plate and cover the hushpuppies and last of the plantains. Go back and shut off the cooker and empty the last of the fish, put the hushpuppies and plantains in the hot box with them then go change clothes and load the food and run pick up my friend and to the park to set up just in time for us to all eat on schedule.

  My wife does not react well to such stress and just wants to cook one item at a time and finish one before she starts on the next item.

[WV Sawmiller]

   We guessed wrong on the amount of grits to fix - I guess several the group are not as cultured as I'd thought - so we had a lot of leftover grits. I emptied and spread them out into a glass baking tray and put them in the fridge to chill.

   For breakfast today my wife took them out and cut some of them up into 3/4" thick strips about an inch or so wide and 3-4 inches long. She dipped the strips in beaten egg and rolled them in flour then fried them brown on both sides in a cast iron skillet.

   She likes honey or syrup on hers but I just sprinkled a little more salt on mine and found them quite tasty.

[YellowHammer]

You are making my mouth water!  

[SwampDonkey]

Kinda repurposed into cornbread?