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Fried Catfish: a Southern Food

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Fried Catfish has long been a staple of Southern Cuisine. This is perhaps due to the activities that surround the act of preparing the food rather than the food itself. A lot of the time when cooking catfish you are not simply going to the store and buying it. Instead, you and a group of close friends or family get together and catch the fish itself through a variety of methods. This ranges from what you would usually expect like using a rod and reel all the way to noodling, which is the act of swimming in the water and pulling a catfish out of its hole by hand. Once you have caught a satisfactory amount of catfish that is when the preparation begins. At this point some of the people will go prepare side items such as some form of potatoes while others will work on fileting the fish so it is ready to be prepared. Then, when everything is cooked and prepared everyone comes together again in order to enjoy the meal they have worked hard for over the course of the day. So, part of the tradition of eating fried catfish is also getting together with people you are close with and having a great experience with them. Here is a recipe for fried catfish if you ever would want to try it yourself. You will need Catfish filets, 1 cup of buttermilk, 1 cup of cornmeal, 1/2 a cup of flour, spices to taste, and oil. Firstly, you need to put your catfish filets in the buttermilk. Then, you mix together the cornmeal, flower, and whatever seasoning spices you would want. Next, put your oil in a pan and make sure the temperature is around 350 degrees. When your oil is hot coat the catfish filets in the breading mixture and place into the oil. Cook the filets for 3-4 minutes on each side depending on how thick they are and the catfish is done.

Leah Worthington (Lowcountry Digital History Initiative)

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Leah Worthington is technically a librarian at the College of Charleston where she works to codirect both the Lowcountry Digital History Initiative and the Lowcountry Digital Library. She first came to the south to pursue her masters degree in History through the College of Charleston. Since the college did not offer a public history masters at the time she pursued internships with both of the programs she now helps direct alongside her degree in History in order to have a background that is fitting for her public history career. The Lowcountry Digital History Initiative is a collection of permanent online history exhibits and publications that tend to focus on more unrepresented history of the lowcountry. The Lowcountry Digital Library, though often confused, is different than the digital history initiative. The point of this program is to help make archives that store history about the lowcountry digital and accessible when the owner of the archive does not have the resources to do so themselves. What she days at the Digital History Initiative is manages the day to day operations. This includes finding authors to write for exhibits reading over said writings and working with graduate students to help them find pictures and write captions that can go along with exhibits as well. For the Digital Library the majority of her work has to do with verifying and digitizing the works that have to be put online so that they can be properly archived. When asked about why she chose these jobs in particular she explained some about public history. She told me how there was front of house work like giving tours on history and back of house work such as making sure information gets displayed. She said that, “I like the intellectual side of the backend or back of the house work” because of fact checking and making sure the public receives the right information. For the foreseeable future she plans to continue working on both of these projects and to constantly improve them.