Cheap Cod

[mso489]

I miss fish and chips, even when they're misrepresented. Used to be a standard item, fast food and restaurant food, but now pretty hard to find. Sometimes McD's Filet-O-Fish with fries can be good, if you hit a lucky day, but not dependably.

We buy fish from a co-op, but it is often too pricey. If you accept the fish that is overstocked, you can get a good deal. We've had some wild caught cat fish recently that were excellent, but again, you can't count on it. If you go into a seafood restaurant at the coast, it's costly.

 

[Merton]

Almost definetely not actual Cod. In my local market fresh Cod and Cod Loin are almost always in the $12.50 -$13.50 range per lb. Lots of other similar fish such as Hake and Monkfish cost less and are fine substitutes.

 

[canucklehead]

I worked in restaurants years ago and learned that grouper is always stripped swahi.. I think that's how it's spelled.

The menu said "fresh grouper"..
it was frozen stripped swahi.

There is little to no regulation on this.. I guess you could sue. What would be your damages?

Swai, it's another name for Basa, the south Asian poopfish.

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

I'm not a fish guy, all i remember is if you dumped enough of the Malt Vinegar on it it was edible. When you grow up dirt poor Long John SIlver's is a treat trust me lol

Damn right.. That's a first of the month treat. Haha

Malt vinegar and lard will fix it.

 

[Briar Lee]

I miss fish and chips, even when they're misrepresented. Used to be a standard item, fast food and restaurant food, but now pretty hard to find. Sometimes McD's Filet-O-Fish with fries can be good, if you hit a lucky day, but not dependably.

We buy fish from a co-op, but it is often too pricey. If you accept the fish that is overstocked, you can get a good deal. We've had some wild caught cat fish recently that were excellent, but again, you can't count on it. If you go into a seafood restaurant at the coast, it's costly.

Maybe the reason I’m so fascinated by cheap cod (if it was cod) is that we hillbillies were taught in school fifty years ago that wild salmon had already then been overfished and Atlantic cod soon would be.

Yet you can buy a can of salmon in every grocery store, some cheap enough for cat food.

Hillbillies eat a lot of sardines. When I was a kid they were sometimes ten cans for a dollar, and every one packed in there by hand. As I was taught a sardine might be any small salt water fish, but then and today most sardines came from the Scandinavian countries, but some today come from Peru.

All seafood competes with land agriculture. As an old song says, hunger can be killed with a can of beans. Ocean fish becomes something of a luxury a few miles from the coasts all around the world.

I’ve seen the rise and decline of catfish farming in Missouri just during my adult lifetime. There’s a similar fish in Southeast Asia named Basa the Vietnamese can produce by aquaculture for a lot less than a Missourian can feed grain to farm raised catfish.

Basa (fish) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

One of our less researched but perhaps well meaning Congresspersons a few years ago here in Missouri signed onto a bill trying to relieve Missouri catfish farmers of burdensome labeling and inspection requirements that in practice forbid imported Basa from being marketed as catfish. But after she was derided as Hanoi Vicky the effort stopped, but by then there wasn’t any Missouri farm raised catfish industry left to save anyway.

Almost all hog trough type buffets in Missouri now feature “fried fish” instead of “fried catfish”. If you tour the kitchen it’s Basa. Basa long ago replaced real domestic catfish at outdoor fish fries unless the fish were wild caught.

Years from now wild Cod might become uneconomic to be sold frozen at Walmart.

But there are always more fish in the sea.

Wait, So How Much of the Ocean Is Actually Fished?

One prominent study said 55 percent, its critics say 4 percent, and they both used the same data.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[simong]

Lee Pipes, Super Value Tobacco & Asian Poop Fish?
Not for me, by Jove! Splash the cash & live a little Mr. Lee.
A 'decent' fish supper, followed by a bowl of St. Bruno in a Comoy's billiard & you'll probably think you've died & gone to heaven!?
Here in England, cod went to the wall years ago. Over fishing, European quotas (resulting in chucking half the cod you do catch back in the sea) a lot of people now prefer haddock instead.

 

[maker]

It was probably Impossible Cod the new Cod vegetarian supplement from Impossible foods. "Tastes so much like real Cod You'd never know Isn't Cod."

 

[AJL67]

It was probably Impossible Cod the new Cod vegetarian supplement from Impossible foods. "Tastes so much like real Cod You'd never know Isn't Cod."

Just like you can’t tell “krab” from crab, I’m sure.

well in ye olden days the poor kids in Massachusetts would bring lobster to school for lunch and get laughed at, things certainly do change.

 

[Briar Lee]

Lee Pipes, Super Value Tobacco & Asian Poop Fish?
Not for me, by Jove! Splash the cash & live a little Mr. Lee.
A 'decent' fish supper, followed by a bowl of St. Bruno in a Comoy's billiard & you'll probably think you've died & gone to heaven!?
Here in England, cod went to the wall years ago. Over fishing, European quotas (resulting in chucking half the cod you do catch back in the sea) a lot of people now prefer haddock instead.

As a lifelong hillbilly I’ve never had much love for fish, except fresh perch caught from a big pond, lake or stream.

Most “perch” in Missouri eating size are Green Sunfish, although in more modern times the Missouri Department of Conservation has stocked lots of bluegill, also called perch by the natives.
——
Green sunfish have been introduced to many bodies of water all across the United States.[4] The green sunfish is considered an invasive species by the states of Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia and New Jersey.[2]Their invasive potential is due in part to their penchant for chasing other sunfish away from mutually preferred habitat of submerged vegetation, a form of interference competition,[5][6] their relatively large mouth,[7] high fecundity and ability to tolerate sediment pollution. In the state of New Jersey, as of 2021, anglers must destroy green sunfish when caught and should report their catch to a state fisheries biologist.[8] In the state of Florida, a permit is required in order to possess green sunfish as it is listed as a prohibited non-native species there.[9] L. cyanellus has been transplanted to countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe, where it has become established in some.[2]

Green sunfish - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

——

Any fresh perch beats any ocean fish or bass or catfish I’ve ever tasted. They are bony, but can be filleted to eliminate bones. Most hillbillies just scale them and gut them.


Perch recipe

Flour batter and fry in hot lard.

Period.

The only reason the game wardens hate Green Sunfish is they’ll eat too many bass and catfish.

When I was a kid a Green Sunfish was all my father ever wet a line for.
—-
The International Game Fish Association(IGFA) all tackle world record for the species stands at 0.96kg (2lb 2oz), caught from Stockton Lake, Missouri in 1971.[22]

 

[cosmicfolklore]

The only fish I’ll walk down to the creek for is Crappie.

 

[Briar Lee]

More about Ozarks perch fish.

A quant speech pattern of the Ozarks is a hillbilly getting ready to go fishing, first decides if he’ll fish for perch fish, bass fish, or catfish. He may or may not take his collie dog or beagle dog or hound dog with him.

When I was eight Daddy bought me a 10 foot square front aluminum boat and put it on Tom Holmes’ pond across Highway M and I very soon became the apex predator of that pond.

Tom Holmes was still alive and he’d never stocked that pond. Green sunfish larvae must be carried by birds to stock farm ponds.

Their flesh is as delicious as bluegill.

But bluegill have tiny mouths and don’t gobble up fingerling bass and catfish.

A long established pond with green sunfish will also have a few mud cats (bullhead) and no other edible size fish.

Every other specie in the pond are bait fish for a green sunfish.

And they are incredibly delicious fresh, but not frozen.

I just ordered a four piece fish dinner with roll, mashed potatoes and gravy and cold slaw at a drive through.

Total is $7.91

I asked what kind of fish, the girl said catfish.

Sure, they are, over there.

 

[simong]

As a lifelong hillbilly I’ve never had much love for fish, except fresh perch caught from a big pond, lake or stream.

Most “perch” in Missouri eating size are Green Sunfish, although in more modern times the Missouri Department of Conservation has stocked lots of bluegill, also called perch by the natives.
——
Green sunfish have been introduced to many bodies of water all across the United States.[4] The green sunfish is considered an invasive species by the states of Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia and New Jersey.[2]Their invasive potential is due in part to their penchant for chasing other sunfish away from mutually preferred habitat of submerged vegetation, a form of interference competition,[5][6] their relatively large mouth,[7] high fecundity and ability to tolerate sediment pollution. In the state of New Jersey, as of 2021, anglers must destroy green sunfish when caught and should report their catch to a state fisheries biologist.[8] In the state of Florida, a permit is required in order to possess green sunfish as it is listed as a prohibited non-native species there.[9] L. cyanellus has been transplanted to countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe, where it has become established in some.[2]

Green sunfish - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

——

Any fresh perch beats any ocean fish or bass or catfish I’ve ever tasted. They are bony, but can be filleted to eliminate bones. Most hillbillies just scale them and gut them.


Perch recipe

Flour batter and fry in hot lard.

Period.

The only reason the game wardens hate Green Sunfish is they’ll eat too many bass and catfish.

When I was a kid a Green Sunfish was all my father ever wet a line for.
—-
The International Game Fish Association(IGFA) all tackle world record for the species stands at 0.96kg (2lb 2oz), caught from Stockton Lake, Missouri in 1971.[22]

Fascinating I'm sure, unfortunately........

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

I'm trying to figure out what a green sunfish is.. A shellcracker? a warmouth? Some kind of hybrid bream like a bluegill cross?

 

[Briar Lee]

I'm trying to figure out what a green sunfish is.. A shellcracker? a warmouth? Some kind of hybrid bream like a bluegill cross?

It’s basically a big bluegill with a very large mouth.

Tom Holmes’ pond was dig by mules, or big draft horses, using a scraper.

It’s still in service over hundred years after it was dug.

The old timers believed that frogs and fish spontaneously generated from the mud of a pond.

The logic was, we didn’t put any in that pond, so where did all the frogs and fish come from?

Modern people know that’s not true. Aquatic wildlife in a pond five miles from nowhere a half mile South of Bug Tussle are bright there by birds or sometimes by winds.

Ozarks farm ponds must have the perfect environment for a green sunfish.

They’ll always be the largest, and by happy accident the tastiest fish in the pond. They usually eat insects, but they are voracious predators of other small fish and will strike any kind of artificial lure.

I could catch green sunfish using a Winston cigarette filter on a straight hook. But I had better lures.

With my boat and endless hours of time during the summer, I learned how to avoid the bait stealers and catch one pound big as your hand green sunfish.

On a cloudy summer day if it looked like rain, my father would grab me and his cane fishing pole and a few scoops of dirt in a drain from the milk barn produced huge nightcrawlers.

We’d take a five gallon bucket across the road to the Tom Holmes pond.

Mama had the lard hot when she’d see us coming home.

The fish went straight from the bucket into the lard as fast as we could clean them and Mama could batter them.

You can’t freeze a green sunfish and still get that flavor.

Those and a dewberry (not blackberry) pie are the most delicious things this side of heaven.

Wash down with sweet tea.

It wasn’t healthy except for the soul.