SC - CookCon

[Liam Fisher]

I don't have a recipe spacifically for eel, but this is how we used to cook 
fish for a Southern social thing called a fish fry.

You will need about 50 to 100 lbs of fresh, dressed fish., 1 large cauldron 
(3 to 7 gallons depending on the size of your crowd.), enough lard to half 
fill the cauldron,  plain flour, plain corn meal, salt and pepper.
Really fresh fish is essential to this recipe.  We used to have our fish frys 
on the riverbank, and the fish were served within minutes of being caught.
First, set the cauldron on the fire, half fill with lard, and heat until it 
bubbles wildly when a few crumbs of meal are thrown in.
Dress the fish, cutting the larger ones into serving size pieces, wash in 
cold water, and salt to taste.
Mix corn meal and flour in equal proportions in a large paper bag..  
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Shake fish in paper bag to coat, and drop into cauldron.
Remove as soon as it rises to the top and is golden brown on all sides..
Drain on brown paper and serve with a tossed salad, french fried potatoes and 
hush puppies(that you have going in a second cauldron), , and beer.  Lots of 
ice cold beer.

Hush Puppies
1 cup self rising flour
2 cups self rising corn meal
1 12 oz. beer
1 cup buttermilk (or enough to make a thick batter0
Mix all ingredients quickly together, drop by spoonfuls into hot boiling lard 
or oil, and take up when they float and are a dark tan.  Drain on brown paper 
and serve hot.

Some people leave off the beer and add 1 1/2 cup of tomato catsup (homemade 
of course)

We used to set trot lines the morning of the fish fry, and fry just about 
anything we caught: carp, catfish, bream, crappie, bass, turtle, 
snake..........
This produces a dish crisp on the outside and moist and tender on the inside. 
 Carp are only good cooked this way when the females have eggs, and the males 
have sacs of semen.  Egg and semen sacs fried this way are a special treat.  
Turtle is a bit harder to dress out than the fish, but well worth the 
trouble.  The couple of times we actually had snake for the pot (cotton 
mouth, pit viper native to the South Eastern United States) I found the taste 
delightfully fishy, but the flesh was a little more rubbery than the fish.
Dressing catfish is an art unto itself.  One grasps the head with one hand, 
grasps the skin with a pair of pliers or skinners, and pulls the skin off in 
strips.  Then you cut off the head and gut the fish.  My ex-husband was so 
fast at this that we often had still wiggling catfish going into the hot 
boiling lard.

Mordonna The Cook
SunDragon Western Reaches
Atenveldt
(m.k.a. Buckeye, AZ)
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