Reub's journey

17 June 2011

Friday fish

Tonight, Friday night, we had fish for dinner. Growing up surrounded by Catholics who believed that Fridays should be meatless, and that fish wasn't meat, this has always made perfect sense to me. 

Friday=fish. Right?

If you have never experienced a Friday night fish fry in the upper Midwest, you really should.


I have very early memories of fishing on the Milwaukee River, and in lakes in Door County. These are musky lures, handed down to my husband from his grandfather in Wisconsin. Muskies are enormous fish that are a challenge to catch, but aren't really for eating.


Now I live in the Pacific Northwest, where there are no muskies, but lots  of fish. This evening I went to pick out some salmon at the local grocery store, and I had to choose from four or five different types. It was all wild-caught, fresh, and fabulous.


 
Just for fun I also bought a handful of "night smelt" that still smelled of the cold waters where they were netted.  These are fried whole, bones and all, so you get your full allowance of calcium.



 
We had a little feast, John and I. It was more than we could finish though, an embarrassment of riches, so I wish you could  have been here to help us out.


Posted by Kerry at 9:07 PM
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6 comments:

  1. Ann, Chen Jie Xue 陈洁雪June 17, 2011 at 10:09 PM

    My parents were Roman catholics, so Friday was also fish nights.

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  2. TexWisGirlJune 18, 2011 at 4:59 AM

    growing up in Wisconsin, i did get to enjoy some Fridy night fish fries. sometimes it seems they're more about the comaraderie than about the fish. :) beer-battered cod. yum...

    and my father and brothers used to go smelt fishing too. then they'd behead them and gut them in our old washing machine tub (which was used as our dog bathtub). there'd always be plenty of gross stuff left in the tub that us kids had to clean out before putting the dog in it. :)

    thanks for the memories!

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  3. JamaJune 18, 2011 at 5:26 AM

    I didn't know Catholics practices eating fish on Fridays since I'm a Muslim.Now I know!

    ReplyDelete
  4. TaborJune 18, 2011 at 1:00 PM

    I caught a slimy muskie...only once...it was big and quite an experience. I did not heat it as I was at a fishing lodge. While wild salmon taste better, cultured salmon are just as healthy.

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  5. UnknownJune 20, 2011 at 2:48 PM

    the fish looks very good, but I like the lures that were handed down from your hubbies Grandfather. I bet they work great too!!

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  6. KerryJune 21, 2011 at 2:05 PM

    Ann: Friday does equal fish, right? right.

    twg: omg your dogs must have smelt faintly of smelt

    Jama: Religious customs surrounding food are so interesting, aren't they.

    Tabor, I never buy farmed salmon b/c of the bad press it has gotten re: escaped fish inter-breeding w/wild varieties (not good) and the way in which farmed salmon are fed, plus the red dye that is added to the meat.

    Doreen: I cannot imagine why a fish would bite on one of those things: they seem impossibly large and not the least bit subtle!

    ReplyDelete

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