BS: National Catfish Day!

Subject: BS: National Catfish Day!
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 24 Jun 10 - 12:09 PM

If you are still on Facebook, you should "Like" the American Folklife Center. Daily updates of folkloric importance, such as today's:

"June 24th was declared National Catfish Day in 1987! Check out this recording about catching catfish in West Virginia: Catfish Bait recording.

"You can hear more about catfish by searching this collection's online presentation: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/index.html"

I thought you 'Catters would want to know. :-)

~ Becky in Long Beach

Subject: RE: BS: National Catfish Day!
From: Emma B
Date: 24 Jun 10 - 12:16 PM

I thought it was June 25th but what's a day when we have Muddy Waters

Subject: RE: BS: National Catfish Day!
From: mousethief
Date: 24 Jun 10 - 01:27 PM

Yowza! I need to drive up to the next city north (about 7 miles I think) because it's the nearest place where I can get catfish. Yum! Now I know what's for supper tonight!

Subject: RE: BS: National Catfish Day!
From: gnu
Date: 24 Jun 10 - 01:31 PM

You need a boat?

Subject: RE: BS: National Catfish Day!
From: Charmion
Date: 24 Jun 10 - 01:40 PM

I'm from Ottawa where they live in the Rideau Canal and go by the name "barbotte". I have a hard time thinking of catfish as food for the non-desperate.

Subject: RE: BS: National Catfish Day!
From: gnu
Date: 24 Jun 10 - 02:09 PM

Never had it, me.

Subject: RE: BS: National Catfish Day!
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 24 Jun 10 - 02:19 PM

A few years after Edward and [Pauline?] had settled on their own place, a retired army major hired Edward as a caretaker for his estate. Pauline gave her consent because the caretaker's job did not use up all of Edward's time. He could still work in his own field. Edward was delighted, for soon the army man started to bring down friends to his Etiwan estate - doctors, lawyers and college professors. The major got Edward to take them fishing. The Negro lived for the week-ends. When Friday afternoon came he would meet the white men at the landing. They would be carrying rods and fancy fishing tackle boxes. Edward would have a rusty tin bucket full of shrimp and mullet bait.

"All right, suh. Here Big Ned ready for shove off. Tide just begin for ebb. Get in an' make yourself comfortable. I going to jerk this here boat to tabby drop 'fore you get them pole rig up," Edward would say, grinning broadly, extending his right hand to help some fat, red-faced lawyer aboard. The lawyer would wink and say that he had something in his box for snake bite, but since snakes never struck in water, he supposed that he had better throw the bottle away.

"Don't do that, for God sake," Edward would stutter, "if it good for snake bite it good for catfish sting. I go put that bottle under the bow seat now."

Edward hovered over the anglers like they were children. Hadn't the major put them in his charge? He was responsible for their safety. "White man who raise away from the salt water never know how for bait a line or take fish off hook, and they censer (always) get hook in their arm and leg," he remarked. "Get for keep your eye on them. They just like buckra baby."

He told Pauline that the job was much to his liking [O?] that it beat hoeing cotton all to pieces.

They would fish the tide out, and early the next morning be ready for another trip to the inlet. Edward was in fine form. He joked with the white man, and said that he was glad there were no preachers aboard because preachers would never stand for that bad language the lawyer used when a catfish got on his line. "And if preacher here, then I ain't able for handle my likker like I want to," he would say.

Excerpted from SOUTH CAROLINA WRITERS' PROJECT, LIFE HISTORY
TITLE: GOT TO GO CRIK.
Date of First Writing: February 8, 1939
Name of Person Interviewed: Edward Simmons
Fictitious Name: Edward Bowles
Address: Edisto Island, S. C.
Occupation: Fisherman
Name of Writer: Chalmers S. Murray

American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940

Subject: RE: BS: National Catfish Day!
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 24 Jun 10 - 02:25 PM

Here's your recipes:

Catfish? Who sesso? Hit's the bes' eatin' fish you kin git anywhere. Don't keer where you go. There aint nothin' that tickle your palate like a chunk of channel cat fried crisp. Of co'se de snot cat good. Th' ole mud cat aint bad neither. I have eat pompano and buffalo fish and red snapper and a lot of others. But don't let nobody tell you any different. Catfish is the finest eatin of all."

"In N'Yowliens when I was a boy I never had to buy no fish. All we had ter do wuz to take a pole and string and hook and go down sit on de steamboat wharf. Sit there and doze and haul 'em in. Den if we git tired of catfish we could have crabs. The by-yo (bayou) flows right through de town. Pay a dime fer a little dip-net and some bacon scarps, and go sit in shade of de oak trees and pull em in! De old crabs, dey catch hold th' bait and hol' it wid dey claws til you pulls it to the top of de water. Den you dip in and lift him out. Crab meat good eatin too."

"'Nother dish I likes a lot dat we useter have in N'Yawliens is Jam-lye (Note: jambalaya - a Creole dish invented by the Spaniards and improved by the French). My wife know how ter make hit bettern anybody I ever see. She take some fish and cut hit up and mix {Begin deleted text}e{End deleted text} hit wid cook rice, and season hit up nice and hot. And some times she put in some chop meat or chicken stead er de fish an' fry it brawn in plenty of grease! Sho is tasty eatin!"

"When I wusn't nothin but a little tad, on Sunday, sometimes, we'd come home from Church and eat a big dinner. Den I'd take my bucket and nothin' else but muh bare hands, and walk out ter de little drain canals dat come outer de swamp. Dat's whar we ketch de crawfish. (Crayfish in whut dem creoles call hit). Ketch a whole bucket full and take em home an' muh mammy would make de best Crawfish beast (Note: he means Crayfish Bisque ) a man ever pop in his mouf. Dat sho'ly is one fine soup. Haint tasted none since I got up to Chicago."

"An Gumbo - ! Didn't you never eat no Gumbo? You has! Well, den, you know whut I talking about. Some times muh woman make it wid crabs or swimp; or sometimes wid chicken, and put in de okra, and make it nice an' tasty wid sage and bayleaf and thyme! An' after hit done cook a long while - - man, dey aint no better eaten no whar!"

"Here in Chicawgo? Yessir, I have done foun' a place ter git good fresh fish and de kine er stuff we put in dem Creole foods. Whar at? Over in Jew town on de wes' side."

"Boss, less quit talking bout dat N'yawleens food. Hit make hongry."

"You done ask me 'bout steamboat songs. Hit bin zo long ago, an' I done jined de church sense I lef down dar, dat I mos fergit all about Coonjone. But dey wuz one song day we uster sing dat went like dis:

    Sing dis song in de city,
    Roll dat cotton bale!
    Nigger always happy
    When he gits out of jail.
    Mobile's got de wimmin,
    Boston got de beans,
    New Yawk done got flashin' swells,
    But de nigger like N'yawleens,
    Cho: Coonjine, baby, won't you coonjine,
    Coonjine, honey, is you game,
    Mammy won't lemme coonjine
    But I coonjine jus' de same!

"Sing hit fer you? Lawd, boss, I aint sung no sich song for forty years. Hit went like dis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (NOTE: He sang it, but impossible to reproduce it.)

"We useter sing dat song when I was workin' on de Alice B. Miller, runnin' up Yazoo River and sometime when I work on de Saint John, a cotton boat, dat run up Red River."

CHICAGO FOLKSTUFF
Negro Lore
FOLKLORE
CHICAGO
May 26, [?]
STATE Illinois
NAME OF WORKER Garnett L. Eskew
ADDRESS 4700 Kenwood Avenue
DATE May 3, 1939
SUBJECT "The Black South in Chicago"
NAME OF INFORMANT George Sims (6034 S. May St., Chicago)

From the above-cited Federal Writers' Project collection.

Subject: RE: BS: National Catfish Day!
From: mousethief
Date: 25 Jun 10 - 01:22 AM

We had deep-fried catfish nuggets (dipped in egg and rolled in seasoned cornmeal) for supper tonight. Yum!