Fish Camp Days

Several people have asked me to explain what the last post means. If I have to explain it, it loses it's je ne sais pas.... However, The image at the top should be a dead give-away....

This is a stork carrying a China baby. That would suggest that we're expecting a China baby! The other storks simply emphasise that message. The flowers are Jasmine, the new China baby's name. Since Hope is a bit harder to illustrate, I didn't try... So, I have a new sister. She's in China. Her name is Jasmine Hope!

Now, today, I asked Daddy to blog about something. I didn't care what, because today is Mommy's birthday and I wont have time to blog while I'm pampering Mommy!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOMMY!!!



Thanks Hon!

Happy Birthday, Lori! I love you!

Okay, today I want to reminisce a little....



Have you ever been to a Fish Camp? If you grew up anywhere in the South, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. A Fish Camp was pretty much just that. The whole place looked like an old mess building you might see at a campground. It probably had screen wire for windows, and a lot of fans running to try to keep it cool. Inside would be rows of long tables with stiff vinyl table covers. These covers never got removed. They just molded themselves to the table over years of bearing the load of platters of fish and being wiped down by the waitresses.





When I was a kid, we didn’t go there much. I don’t know why, but I suspect that the whole family pretty much had a ball doing stuff before me and my brother came along. After that, I guess they just gave up, and decided they had too many children to go anywhere. I don’t ever remember going to the Fish Camp when I was a kid.

When I was old enough to drive, that’s when I discovered the treasure that had been in my own back yard for years. My own acres of diamonds you might say.

The Fish Camp was located on the bank of the Catawba River just across the county line. It only opened Thursday to Saturday and anytime you got there, a line of people waiting to get in stretched out the door and well into the parking lot until about 30 minutes before closing. It had to be the most popular place in both counties. You could plan on standing in that line at least 45 minutes, maybe more, before you got a seat.

As soon as you got there, you’d see all the same people each week. It was a ritual each of us followed, week after week. Every so often you’d run into somebody who hadn’t never been cause they were new in town or just ignorant, and we’d haul them down there to try out the best fish joint in the country. You could always spot a newbie, too. They’d be eating the seafood platter or some broiled shrimp or some other big city seafood mess. They wasn’t much of that sort of thing on the menu, and I suspect it was there just for the new folks, and yankees. The rest of us knew the real treasure was the black bass, catfish, perch, and flounder, and sometimes we’d get fried oysters!

And it was ALL YOU CAN EAT!

That’s right! You read that right. ALL YOU CAN EAT!

You could go in there and for about four or five bucks you could eat yourself comatose.

Just as soon as you sat down, a waitress would have paper plates and little tubs of the sourest cole slaw in the world. She’d also have a couple of pitchers of tea, and maybe water, too. If you asked for a menu, she knew you hadn’t been there before.

Most times, they’d just take your order while you were still getting seated.

She’d say, “Wha’ chew wan’, Hon?” And that was before we even had a Hon! We’d tell her, and she'd disappear behind the swinging door into the kitchen. In a minute or two, she’d bring out a platter full of French fries and hush puppies. By this time, you’d be so hungry, that all that initial stuff got gone in seconds! The main stuff would be along a minute or two after that.

This place was a model of fish frying efficiency. My daddy ran an electrical contracting outfit in town, and he had been the contractor when they built this building after the first one burned up. I remember going in the kitchen and there must have been a hundred deep fat fryers all in rows! Each one would be full of lard and just waiting to do some serious frying. At opening time they’d have them all fired up and full of French fries and hush puppies! They’d have a man running four or five of them, and he’d keep all of them full!
It was a regular fish frying frenzy for fish fare fanatics!
(Is there a legal linguistic licensing limit for alliterative usage?)



We learned early on that the serious eating man didn’t waste any time or energy on fries or pups. We were there for fish, and that’s where we focused our attention. We knew all those extras simply took up precious room in your stomach. Room that should be used for fish, and not something you could get at any of the local fast food joints.

My favourite was the catfish. Bone in, and about six to eight inches long.



These weren’t farm raised either. Back then they got them right out of the river, skinned them, and packed them on ice and sold them to the guy running the Fish Camp. They would roll them in seasoned corn meal and flour and fry them to perfection. The fish would be snow white with little tracks of black and a crispy, salty crust that protected the tender meat until we attacked it. It tasted of sweet fish and had a faint reminder of the water from whence it was taken. We’d order, and as soon as she brought us one order, we send her back for another.

By the time she got back with number 2, we’d be done with number 1.
And that’s how it went for about an hour or so.

Now eating whole, bone-in catfish is an art itself, and requires attention to the details in order to get the maximum yield of fish and flavour from each one. The first thing you do is grab up one and bite off the tail. This part is thin and crispy, like a fish potato chip. Catfish aint got scales, so they have to be skinned. Usually the skin stays on the bony tail part, so when it gets fried up, it gets real crispy. Most newbie’s will omit this step due mostly to ignorance, but once they’ve been introduced, they don’t have to be reminded again!

Wrap your mind around that for a minute….Fish Potato Chips….mmmmmmm!



After the tail has been devoured, then you pull off the top fin and take a bite right at the top letting your teeth just hit the spine, and drag the tender white flaky deliciousness into you mouth. Repeat this process all the way down to his tail, and then turn him over and get the last little bit on the bottom. When you’re done, all you have left is a fish skeleton that you can lay on the discard tray. This tray will become your trophy of the evening as the pile of fish skeletons grow to overflow the tray’s capacity.
At this point, you may take a sip of tea, and then grab up another one!



My friend Donny was the master of this process. He came to the Fish Camp ready for battle. He’d have no belt, loose jeans, and they’d probably be unbuttoned to allow for maximum belly expansion. He knew how to keep the tea flowing, too. His favourite expression to the waitress was “These fish gotta swim!”
He was like a highly specialised machine and fish flowed smoothly off the platter into his mouth and the skeletons discarded in one fluid motion.

He’d hit the tea and go again. After about seven or eight platters, we’d lean back and have the waitress signal the kitchen we were slowing. They’d shut down about half the fryers at that point and most of the cooks would go outside for a breather. After we put away that last crispy tail, we’d sip on tea and lie for about an hour. That was to give our system enough time to recover from the shock, and allow us to get up and leave.

At the cash register was another line that required a wait of about 10 or 15 minutes. While you were in this line, there were two rows of tables about the length of a grocery store aisle covered with every candy and gum known to man. Milk Duds, Sugar Babies, Sugar Mamas, Sugar Daddys, Hubba Bubba, Big League, Pez, Dentyne, Butterfinger, Milky Way, Marathon Bar, Cow Tails, Zots, candy cigarettes, bubble gum cigars, Bazooka Joe, Now or Laters, Baby Ruths, Cotton Candy, All Day Suckers, and I cant think of what all else there was. Check it out, here!

We loaded up on as much as we could hold and waited to pay our bill.

Who's ready to go???


~Daddy! for