Catfish

At lunch, while discussing food likes and dislikes, the four at the table agreed on liver and onions. We like it. Then the talk moved on to other food likes and dislikes.

I said, “I’m tired of having fried catfish every Friday.”
The other three disagreed. They all love fried catfish. Typical Texans.
I said, “But there are so many other wonderful ways to cook fish!”

On trips to Europe I ate many varieties of fish and seafood, prepared many different ways. In Belgium I indulged in an entire bucket of mussels, and in France I stuffed myself on a platter of “fruits de mer” heaped with shell fish whose names were a mystery to me. On river cruises gourmet meals served many varieties of fish prepared with ingenious sauces.

One of the best trips I made was the river cruise from Vienna to Amsterdam. Our small cruise ship took 105 Americans up the Danube, through 65 locks over the “watershed of Europe,” down the Main to the Rhine, and through a canal to Amsterdam. The meals were marvelous!

At dinner one night I sat opposite a couple from Texas. I can’t remember their names or their city; it might have been Beaumont. A big, burly man and his buxom wife. I think I ordered veal for the entree; they chose the catfish. When it came, lovely large baked fillets garnished with red and yellow pepper strips, the Texans said, “What’s this?” “This isn’t catfish.”

They sent it back to the kitchen.

For them, the only way to serve catfish was fried.