Catfish Mediterranean

New Year’s Eve…out with the old, in with the new!

It’s that time of year when we evaluate priorities, make resolutions and vow to stay with them through at least the next 365 days.

That’s just what Jim and Karen Weir did back before the new Millennium. As Jim prepared to retire from his career as an airline pilot, he thought about the family home place in Central Alabama. It was an 1880s, Queen Anne farmhouse that had fallen into disrepair, but he and Karen craved family connection.

“Our main reason for moving here was establishing roots for our grandchildren,” Karen said. “I never had that, because my family moved a lot.” Plus, she really liked the countryside around Gastonburg, a Wilcox County hamlet right in the middle of Catfish Country!

So Jim, the pilot/Air Tran owner/plus part-time dentist, and Karen, the architectural designer, moved here from Miami in 2000, re-did the house and soon became active in local culture. That included membership in Arts Revive and Master Gardeners, work as a volunteer museum guide and adjusting taste buds to different cuisine.

The fish they previously cooked and ate came from the Caribbean. “We had our first catfish here in Alabama,” Karen noted. “We ate the typical catfish, hushpuppies, coleslaw thing, and since I’m a cook, I started using catfish in interesting recipes. My husband loves Italian, so I concocted recipes that normally use chicken in a simmered sauce with pasta.”

The result was Karen’s Catfish Mediterranean recipe. It’s similar to chicken cacciatore and quite tasty, especially the second day. She cuts the fish into chunks so the fish holds up well in the sauce. “Catfish is a very neutral fish. You can use it in almost anything, and almost any recipe where you use chicken, you can use catfish,” she said.

Meanwhile, Jim found an after-retirement job flying Bonnie Plant Farm jets to locations around the U.S., and Karen began painting and displaying her artwork. They own a small plane as well and use it to visit friends and relatives who live too far away for easy travel by highway. Karen also designed an antique farm tools display along Alabama Highway 5. So if you are ever down that road, look for the sign that says “Gastonburg.” The mule-driven farm implements are nearby.

Oh yes, one of Karen's favorite drives is by the catfish ponds on Highway 5 when the mist rises off the water in the morning or when the sunset glows upon it in the evening.

Here’s Karen’s recipe.

CATFISH MEDITERRANEAN

Serves 6

3-4 slices thick-cut bacon, diced
6 medium catfish fillets cut into 2" x 2" pieces
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
2 stalks celery, finely diced
2 cleaned medium carrots, finely diced
1/2 green bell pepper, finely diced
1/2 yellow pepper, diced
2 cans "Italian style" diced tomatoes
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
1 1/2 cups consommé or water
1 cup button mushrooms, drained
1/2 cup chopped green olives
1/2 cup black olives, chopped
Basil, oregano, lemon juice, kosher salt, ground pepper to taste

Fry diced bacon until crisp. Remove onto paper towels. Reserve 1 tablespoon bacon grease, and add 2 tablespoons olive oil. Cook onion, garlic, carrots, celery and ground pepper until soft. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, consommé (or water) and stir well. Add catfish pieces and simmer gently until done (until fish flakes) and sauce slightly thickens. Add olives, mushrooms and seasonings, and simmer for several more minutes. Taste to correct seasoning. Add crispy bacon last.

Serve over angel hair pasta with large salad and crusty bread (and a glass of wine?)

(Note) This is just as good over rice, and we also liked it on the second day. I did not use mushrooms, so my photo won’t look exactly like Karen’s dish.

PHOTO: Catfish Mediterranean

The Catfish Diaries

Catfish Country has gone big-time COUNTRY!

A diary about life at Newbern’s Prairie View Farm is featured in the October/November issue of Country Magazine. Some of you farm girls or country girls-at-heart might subscribe to it…or perhaps to its sister publications: Country Woman, Reminisce, Birds & Blooms and Taste of Home.

Jean Watson, the catfish farm girl whose photos are featured in Where Eagles Fly, shares events for the week beginning July 22. She writes about life in Newbern and the ups and downs of farming 200 acres of catfish ponds. She did the photographs as well, and they are wonderful depictions of typical farm tasks such as harvesting fish and working on paddlewheels.

She just happened to be writing the diary during the middle of this year’s extreme drought, so she describes how paddlewheels must keep turning to stir extra oxygen into the water. If oxygen gets too low, fish can get sick, and sometimes whole ponds of them can be lost. Then, there’s the day that the well for their house and shop ran dry!

She also mentions food safety, an issue that has been in the news concerning some imported foreign products, including catfish. She assures readers that domestic catfish production is closely monitored by our government, meaning we don‘t have to worry about banned medications, carcinogens or other pollutants in U.S. fish. Whatever goes into the pond is USDA, EPA or FDA approved. Prior to harvest, samples of the fish are tested by the processor, and that prevents us from having to swig a quart of sweet tea to drown out off flavor!

While the Watsons have a farm manager and two other employees these days, they started their farm without any extra help…just themselves and their two sons. If the fish needed oxygen during the night, the whole family pitched in to save the crop.

Jean and her husband, Byron, say that producing catfish is a “dream come true.” Their boys are grown now, but Jean told me that coming home to the farm “is like heaven to them. They can come home and all their cares go away.”

Photo: The low water level on the drain pipe in this Prairie View Farm pond shows the severity of this year's drought.

Paying Homage to our Heritage

Does your community pay homage to its heritage? Does it erect a statue or otherwise celebrate a person, product or event that gives the town its unique place in the sun?

For instance:

Birmingham has its Vulcan.

Dothan has the peanut.

Enterprise reveres a boll weevil, while Clanton uplifts the peach.

Monroeville hosts a play to honor Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

Pine Apple invites folks over for a Front Porch Tour to show its hospitality.

Here in Selma, we celebrate ghosts in the fall and historic homes in the spring.

Over in Greensboro, homage is paid to the catfish. I don’t know of any monuments erected to the product that changed the town’s future, but the fish with whiskers adorns water tanks and welcome signs.

Elsewhere in the region, the catfish is honored as the Tale-Tellin’ Festival’s mascot. It has its own catfishmobile, and a radio station uses Catfish Country for its handle. Past catfish festivals have crowned many queens, and the catfish fry is practically the official meal. Oh yes…the fish recently got its own book!

The catfish certainly deserves all this attention and more! In the Black Belt—where all kinds of studies deem dire statistics for whatever is being measured — Hale County ranks near the top in the nation for production of catfish! It’s the county’s best performing farm crop ever, and back when other enterprises went bust, catfish saved many a family farm and and created new support businesses.

The actual impact will soon be known when Auburn University releases an extensive economic study about Alabama’s catfish industry. Once the facts are out, we may just have to build a monument to the catfish!

What is unique about your community’s heritage?

Pot-Luck? Try Sweet and Sour Beans

When it comes to pot-luck in Catfish Country (and let me just say that there is a lot of "pot-luck" here), the cooks have special recipes they like to prepare over and over, especially when the group’s food “critics” rave about their dishes!

Fran Pearce has just such a recipe.

Fran is a down-home, keep-it-simple kind of cook, and while her Sweet ‘N Sour Beans has a lot of ingredients, it’s one of those put-it-in-the-crockpot-and-forget-about-it dishes that busy folks love...which makes it perfect for Fran.

When she’s not keeping records for the family catfish business, this fifth-generation farm girl is likely working on community projects. Her community, which stretches from Browns 30 miles east to Selma, is her hobby. She’s active in the Black Belt Action Commission, Arts Revive and her church.

I happened to find her one day last week over at Selma’s Ceramics Arts Center, where she was helping plan the Arts Revive booths for Riverfront Market Day. “I’m not an artist, but I appreciate very much what arts bring— life and fun to the whole community!” she says.

As a member of the Black Belt task force, she’s had the opportunity to travel around the region. “It’s really fun seeing what art is doing to revive these counties. We are a gold mine!” she adds, mentioning cultural sites such as the Gees Bend Quilters, Marion’s antiques alley and Selma’s historic homes. She sometimes takes her grandchildren along, such as a recent trip to Gees Bend to watch the quilters, then to cross the Alabama River on the Gees Bend Ferry.

Meanwhile, she and husband David’s two sons are raising their children on the farm, too…making them the sixth and seventh generations to live there. It's a life that keeps them working outdoors and puts them a long way from school and church and big-city malls. But then, they awaken to morning mists that rise above the water and retire in the reflection of magnificent sunsets. Now that's a culture apart!

Photo: Jackson and Mary Ashlyn Pearce, front, with friend John Ross Bone ride the Gees Bend Ferry across the Alabama River.

Here's Fran's recipe:

Sweet & Sour Beans

Fran Pearce

8 bacon strips cooked & drained
2 medium onions diced
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground mustard
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ cup vinegar
1 can (28 oz) baked beans undrained
1 can (16 oz) kidney beans rinsed & drained
1 can (15 ½) pinto beans rinsed & drained
1 can (15 oz) lima beans rinsed & drained
1 can (15 ½ oz) black-eyed peas rinsed & drained

Pour all of the beans into a crockpot. Sauté onions until tender. Add brown sugar, salt, mustard, garlic powder, & vinegar to the sautéed onions. Bring to a boil. Pour over beans. Cook on high 3 to 4 hours. Makes 15 to 20 generous servings.

Welcome to Catfish Bytes

Good morning…or good evening!

Whatever the time of day at your place, welcome to Catfish Bytes, a blog about life in Catfish Country.

While much of The South qualifies for that title, I live in Alabama’s Black Belt where catfish is king, and community is a big front porch with a great double door. Just go on in and help yourself to pot-luck suppers, church homecomings, historic pilgrimages and Friday night football.

Named for the color of its dirt, the Black Belt is a mostly rural area once covered by a shallow sea. Scientists come around now and then to dig up fossils of dinosaurs, sea turtles and other creatures. No kidding!

Then some 40-plus years ago, farmers discovered that if they dug a pond in the prairie clay, the hole would hold water. If they stocked it with catfish, the mineral-rich soil would help sustain their crop. Then, if they harvested the fish, buyers would come, ready to get the bounty home for a catfish fry!

That’s how a region that once was the Camelot of the Cotton Kingdom changed its identity. Yet, the Black Belt is known for a whole lot more…Spanish moss, wide prairies, antebellum mansions, hunting camps, rivers and more rivers, and well, a place where tourists come to see the authentic South!

It’s a destination explored by Hernando Desoto and trod by Civil War soldiers and Civil Rights activists. Visitors flock to heritage trails, museums and events.

It’s also a paradox— Old South and New South—a place where former sharecropper cabins still exist and foreign auto suppliers build parts for their cars.

It’s where the politics often has a deep-blue hue in a very red state.

It’s where the natives still say “y’all,” and California transplants live in Tara-type homes and say “you all.”

It’s been my home since I was barely walking, and before that, the home of my parents and grandparents.

So, welcome to my Place on the Blog where I’ll share Catfish Country with you: its heritage, its present, its people and their dreams, and oh yes, recipes…catfish for sure!

PHOTOS: Greensboro water tank and Magnolia Hall