Fried Catfish: An Acquired Taste?
In or out of old cabins
When I was a kid, there was a restaurant on the other end of Birmingham from us, a place called Catfish Cabin. From what I remember of it, the building resembled someone’s idea of a cabin — not an old log cabin, but a lighter, more refined stained wood. But that’s merely the vagaries of memory talking, because though I surely passed the building from time to time — a close friend had moved nearby, though I was soon off to grad school in another state — I never once entered the premises.
I never ate catfish at this leading edifice for a fried catfish meal.
I think about it often, what forms of catfish faire this old cabin offered. How many variations of fried catfish could there be, and how many people when I was a kid would consent to eating catfish any way other than fried? I’ve heard talk of catfish stews, and of course you can bake the fish or even creole it.
While I have “creoled” a catfish and even used a fillet or two in homemade seafood gumbo, somehow to me, eating this now farm-raised delicacy any other way than fried seems as wrong as microwaving bacon. You can do it, but there should be some kind of law against it.
I know: my southern prejudice is showing, but ever since I was a kid, whenever anyone brought fresh fish to my mother, she…
