The Friday Night Fish Fry - Eating Vicariously

With many folks returning to indoor dining now that the weather is turning cooler, one of my pandemic projects – eating vicariously at memorable venues of the past and writing about them here – has taken a backseat to other projects.  But I still enjoy armchair recollections of favorite eating experiences that remain beyond my reach for any number of reasons.  Most recently I waxed poetic about the iconic Chicago-style hotdog which is difficult to find beyond the environs of Chicagoland.  This autumn I returned to favorite family haunts in southwestern Michigan where I enjoyed a traditional Midwestern Friday night fish fry at Clementine’s, in South Haven on the shores of Lake Michigan, where I was served a “mess of perch” just the way God always meant them to be.  Oh my, were those perch tasty, served with tartar sauce and lemon wedges (more please!), and baked potato, and a thick slice of warm garlic bread.  Oh, finestkind! So, this got me to thinking about all those wonderful Friday fish fries growing up in Midwest America . . . and in Wisconsin to be specific.  Having lived on the Mid Atlantic for the past 46 years, I have missed the tradition of the Friday night fish fries.  
 

One thing that can be said about a Wisconsin Friday night fish fry . . . it’s all about community.  It’s as if the entire state, regardless of where one might reside, or which political or religious beliefs one adheres to, is sitting down to the same meal.  One often goes to the same place and see the same people; something uniquely convivial.  The Germans have a wonderful, almost undefinable word to describe it all . . . die Gemütlichkeit . . . a sense of geniality and friendliness.   Everyone is out doing the same things.  There is no reason to sit home alone.  A Friday night fish fry bring everyone together. 

This Wisconsin tradition can be traced back to the early 19th century when American pioneers and European immigrants – many of them Germans and Poles – settled along the western shoreline of Lake Michigan and its abundant lake and river fisheries.  And it was religion which gave rise to the Friday night fish fry in the first place.  A great many of the early arrivals were Catholic and the Church played a major role in the development of the state’s cultural and religious traditions.   As far back as the mid-13th century canon law forbade Catholics to consume meat on Fridays as a way of commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Good Friday.  Many European Catholics brought this practice with them when they settled in America.  By the mid-1960s, the Catholic church changed the rules concerning abstention from meat every Friday of the year and required parishioners to do so only on Fridays during the Lenten season.  By then, however, the Friday night fish fry, which had begun as communal church dinner, had become an integral part of Wisconsin life.

The traditional Friday night fish fry received another boost to its popularity in 1920 with the arrival of Prohibition.  Unable to legally sell alcohol, Wisconsin taverns began to take a lead from the Church and offer fish fries to stimulate business however they could in order to stay open.  Freshwater fish like 

bluegill, perch, and walleye were plentiful, cheap, and easy to prepare.   And the aroma of all you can eat fried fish made it possible to mask the possibility that illegal bootlegged hooch was being served clandestinely.  When Prohibition was finally repealed in 1933, fish fries and the serving of libations of choice became inextricably linked. 

When I speak of a traditional fish fry, I am not talking about an offering of fish and chips – usually deep-fried cod or haddock served with a side of “chips” (the old sod term for French fries) and malt vinegar – served every day of the week.  Wisconsin Friday night fish fries traditionally offer local freshwater fish such as bluegill, lake perch, and walleye which appear on the menu only on Friday evening.  In my mind bluegill is arguably the tastiest fish around followed by lake, or yellow perch.  Walleye, a larger and more substantial fish, is often offered at fish fries, but it's not just reserved for Fridays.  Many restaurants (especially supper clubs) have it on their daily menu all year long.  Areas of the state bordering the Mississippi River (the border with Minnesota and Iowa) will often offer catfish.  Scandinavian settled communities in northern and eastern Wisconsin (especially in Door County, the little finger of land extending into Lake Michigan), favor the fish boil, a variant on the fish fry, which involves heating potatoes, white fish, and salt in a large cauldron.

During the spring smelt run, special "Smelt Fries" pop up around the state.  Smelt are netted in rivers in the early spring and rarely appear on menus any other time of the year. They are small, similar to a sardine, and are served whole with only 

the head, tail, and guts removed.  I introduced my then Florida born and raised fiancée to the joys of fish and smelt fries when she visited me in Milwaukee.  After we were married, we treated some of our Tucson friends to fried smelt in our humble graduate student apartment near campus (it was cheap and easy to fix).  Regardless of which fish is served, beer, another Wisconsin staple, is normally used instead of water or milk to create the frying batter.  It makes it lighter while adding flavor and sometimes color to the mix and very nicely seals in the flavor of the fish.

"When I go to a fish fry, I feel like I'm dining with the whole state," writes Terese Allen, coauthor of The Flavor of Wisconsin (2012) published by the Wisconsin Historical Society.  "I get a very strong sense of connection with my past and my Wisconsin culture. There aren't many food traditions, except for the ones in the home, that are that way anymore. It just feels like something we all get to do together."  It is an “end-of-the-work-week rite . . . that brings people together to celebrate everyday life. It’s not a holiday, but it is a regular special occasion.”  And part of the allure of the fish fry is the ambiance of the establishment where it is enjoyed for whatever reason.   I could not have said it better myself.  

When I was growing up one of the important questions come Friday was where we were going to eat fish tonight.   We would occasionally have it at home, but we very often joined our fellow Wisconsinites at a favorite restaurant – usually near our homes in Madison, Lake Mills, and suburban Milwaukee -- diner, supper club, church community hall, American Legion post depending on what fish was served, the type of batter and seasoning used, and the quality of the various offered side dishes, including potato and macaroni salad, cole slaw, potato pancakes with either apple sauce or maple syrup (or hash browns, fried potatoes or mashed baby reds), rye bread, etc.  And who could forget the lemon wedges, tartar and hot sauces, and malt vinegar.  A serving of baked beans was not uncommon.  Even school cafeterias offered fried fish on Friday – usually fish sticks – served with tater tots or French fries.

Living as close as we do to the Atlantic and the offerings of the Chesapeake Bay, we are in no short supply of some of the best available seafood.   And over the years I have preferred mine broiled, baked, grilled, blackened, poached . . . you name it.  I tend to believe that frying a good piece of fish detracts from its natural tenderness and flavors.  A Wisconsin Friday night fish fry is another matter.   Enjoy your Chilean sea bass, your sushi and sashimi, your sesame encrusted medium rare ahi tuna, your grouper and rockfish fillets and steaks.   But when it comes to Friday evening in Wisconsin, there is nothing better than local bluegills, perch and walleye.   And how do we like it?   Fried of course.

Holiday Cheese Dreams

The holidays are certainly upon us, and with them comes a mail box stuffed full of end of the year pleas for charitable contributions and mail order catalogs of every size and description full of special holiday sales.  I give what I can, and in the era of COVID-19, I am shopping online more frequently.  Never having been a big shopper, I find this alternative more relaxing and satisfying.  Unfortunately, a great deal of this mail ends up in the recycling bin.  That said, I have always looked forward to the annual arrival of two catalogs in particular – The Swiss Colony and Wisconsin Cheeseman, two companies based in Monroe, Wisconsin whose products I have enjoyed for many years, especially during the holidays. 

The Swiss Colony was established in 1926 by Ray Kubly to market mail-order local cheeses.  He later added sausages and various baked goods.  The company changed its name to Colony Brands, Inc. in 2010 to reflect its new position as a parent company for an extensive portfolio of food and non-food subsidiaries and catalogs.  The Wisconsin Cheeseman, a privately held mail-order food gift company established in 1946, publishes several catalogs annually, also featuring Wisconsin cheeses, sausages, chocolates, baked goods and other assorted food gifts.  The company was more recently purchased by Colony Brands, and today the two catalogs are roughly similar in their content.  I still like to peruse each and dream of their mouth-watering offerings.

Back in the day, it was more than just a dream.  When I was returning home to Wisconsin during my holiday breaks from college in the early 1970s, The Swiss Colony still operated brick and mortar stores offering it many products individually and in the various gift boxes still offered through its catalogs.  What a treat it was to wander the aisles enjoying the aromas of fresh cut cheeses and sausages offered as samples to customers.  My favorite was a store located in the nearby Brookfield Mall which also had a small Swiss café in the back . . . a favorite place for soups and sandwiches to fortify one for holiday shopping. 

Those days are far in the past, but I still reflect fondly on them during the holiday season as I peruse this year’s catalogs.  And there is always a possibility that one of those lovely and tasty gift boxes will end up under the tree.

Still Looking Toward Portugal -- Has It Really Been 14 Years??

The past beats inside me like a second heart.

      – John Banville, The Sea (2005)

It was late November 2008 and I was sitting in my in-law's study in Gainesville, Florida where we had assembled for an extended family Thanksgiving celebration in Tallahassee the day before.  I was working on some project notes and it struck me that it might be time to start my own blog.

It was something I had been considering for quite some time.  I had been reading those of others, and I decided I had thoughts and observations I might want to share.  I was not sure how it would play out, if at all, but I decided I was going to take a shot.  One can never tell what might happen.

A few days later, on December 1, 2008, my wife and I decided to spend our last day in Florida roaming the back roads around Gainesville – over by Cross Creek, Micanopy, Island Pond, and Hawthorne.  This trip became the subject of my first blog essay which I posted that evening.

Steve and SallyAnn Rogers.  Cross Creek, Florida. December 1, 2008

The narrow country roads passed under canopies of live oak festooned with long gray beards of Spanish moss. There was water in Cross Creek and in the River Styx (not always the case), and we observed white herons and egrets wading the sedgy marsh shallows looking for their next meals while an alligator rested on a nearby bank minding his own business.  We wandered around Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ farm at Cross Creek and the surrounding pine hammock, and we were lucky to have the entire place to ourselves.  I was reminded why I liked coming back to this special part of Florida.  Perhaps Miss Rawlings said it best. “It is necessary to leave the impersonal highway, to step inside the rusty gate and close it behind. One is now inside the orange grove, out of one world and in the mysterious heart of another. And after long years of spiritual homelessness, of nostalgia, here is that mystic loveliness of childhood again. Here is home.”  It was not my home, but I certainly felt at home there.  I do every time I return . . . , something I hope to do early in the approaching new year.   

So why am I "Looking Toward Portugal"?  I suppose this is a legitimate question and there is no big secret mystery.  For the past three decades I have been gravitating to the coast of Maine.  At first, it was only during our annual summer hiatus, but in more recent years I have returned every chance I get regardless of the season.  And each time I go back, I find myself standing on that rocky shoreline looking out to sea and pondering what lies beyond the farthest horizon.  Gazing in a general easterly direction from the Maine coast, you will see nothing but the rolling expanse of the Gulf of Maine stretching toward the southernmost extension of Nova Scotia.  Yet, if you continue across the Atlantic you will eventually arrive on the northern shores of Portugal somewhere near Oporto.

Doing this I was constantly reminded of Jack Kerouac’s observations when he stared out across the Atlantic from the shores of Long Island (he naturally gravitated to America’s two coasts) – “this last lip of American land.”  Writing in On the Road (1957):  “Here I was at the end of America . . . no more land . . ., and now there was nowhere to go but back.”  Doing this I guess we are reminded of our limitations, but we are also offered a hint of what might be if we only choose to look beyond those far horizons while at the same time considering what lies at our back.

I could have been satisfied with “Looking Toward Nova Scotia,” but I liked to think there was far more to consider beyond.  Looking out to sea from "the Portugal side" of my own life and pondering what lies beyond that meeting of water and sky, I know that my grand search will never be over. Certainly not in my lifetime. I will always return to that "last lip of American land."  It, too, is home.

For the past 14 years I have been drawing on past memories and present-day concerns to try and understand better how I might want to navigate what the future might hold.  

“The past is never dead,” William Faulkner writes in Requiem for a Nun. “It's not even past.”   Writing in Moon for the Misbegotten, Eugene O-Neill tells us “There is no present or future – only the past, happening over and over again – now.”  There is certainly something to this.  Perhaps Søren Kierkegaard said it best.  “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

This is what I hope to continue doing with this blog . . . looking to the past to help me understand where I am now and where I hope to be in the future.  The key to it all is hope. As the Buddha instructed . . . staying hopeful you will never know what tomorrow will bring.

Namasté.