Celebrating the Fish Fry, a Late-Summer Black Tradition

Chef Todd Richards remembers the fish fries his mother hosted for their family in Chicago: The gatherings would spill into the street from their front yard.

Tables packed with platters of cornmeal-crusted fried catfish, hand-cut fries, bottles of beer, homemade hot sauce and plenty of lemon slices sat waiting for waves of guests to enjoy at their leisure. Music from the family’s record player would drift into the street outside their home on the city’s South Side.

“She made the fish in batches, and would talk and hang out while the fish was cooking,” Richards recalled.

Today, at Richards’ Southern Fried, his restaurant in the Krog Street Market in Atlanta, he serves fried catfish (cornmeal-crusted, of course), his own version of the fish fries of his childhood.

On its surface, the fish fry is a humble get-together exalting the simple pleasure of crispy fried fish, flecked with orange-red hot sauce, resting on a slice of white bread alongside various side dishes. But the tradition has deep roots, and special meaning, in black communities across the country. For many families, late summer is prime time for the fish fry, which becomes a wistful embrace of the season’s last days.

“The fish fry is not unique to the black community: Any group living near a body of water or an ocean would fry or grill fish,” said food historian Adrian Miller.

But the tradition took on a different meaning in the South during the era of slavery. “The work schedule on the plantation would slow down by noon on Saturday, so enslaved people had the rest of that day to do what they wanted,” Miller said.

Those who finished work early could go fishing and bring back their catch to be fried that night; plantation owners did not mind, Miller said, because it was one less meal they had to provide. “So the fish fry started as a Saturday-night thing on plantations, and it was like an impromptu get-together,” he said.

In the decades after Emancipation, the tradition became a business for many African-Americans, who brought fish fries with them as they migrated from the South to other parts of the country. “There were three types of cheap restaurants during the Great Migration: barbecue, fried chicken and fried fish,” Miller said.The fish fry was also used as a popular tool to raise money for churches.

As black families moved to cities, the tradition moved to Friday nights. “One possible explanation is the influence of Catholics in cities, who would eat fish on Friday nights,” he said. “Fish markets would have sales those nights, so it was cheaper to fund a fish fry.”

In Los Angeles, Georgette Powell is the second-generation owner of Mel’s Fish Shack, named after her father, Mel Powell, who opened the business in 1982 after moving to the city from Georgia. “People kept telling him to open a Mexican restaurant, but he opened a fish fry,” Powell recalled.

She has run the small takeout operation, which serves fried and grilled seafood, since 2001, when her father died. “A lot of our customers come here because they remember their grandmother or mother bringing them here, and it brings back that nostalgia,” she said.

Powell serves catfish, tilapia and snapper. But the type of fish and sides in a fish fry can vary from place to place. In the South, bone-in or filleted catfish is king, with whiting and tilapia close behind because of their relatively low price. In the Midwest, perch and carp are big; in the Mid-Atlantic States, porgy is an option.

Side dishes also showcase regional differences in the fish fry. Coleslaw is popular across the country, while hush puppies and meatless spaghetti are part of the spread in the Carolinas. In the South and Mid-Atlantic, hush puppies are common.

Ashley Faulkner, the chef at Bucktown, a casual restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island, remembers hush puppies and her mother’s potato salad on the table at her family’s fish fries in the Bronx in New York. “Every summer cookout we had was a fish fry,” Faulkner said.

Her mother grew up in Kinston, North Carolina, and Bucktown was inspired by her Southern recipes. Now Faulkner hosts late-summer fish fries at the restaurant, serving macaroni and cheese, collard greens and other Southern side dishes alongside the catfish and shrimp. New England seafood like skate wing and calamari are also added to the spread. She is working on opening a second location in Boston, where she wants to offer summer fish fries featuring cod as well as catfish.

Condiments, too, are an essential part of any fish fry. Different types of fish require different accompaniments. “Catfish is already an oily fish,” said Richards, the Atlanta chef. “So if you use tartar sauce, that’s like oil on top of oil.”

At Mel’s Fish Shack, Powell makes a garlic dill sauce instead of tartar sauce, and says lemon’s acidity is a must for fried fish. “And you absolutely have to have some good hot sauce,” she added with a laugh. “You can make good fish taste bad with bad hot sauce.”

Miller, the historian, said hot sauce “is absolutely critical. Some farm-raised fish can be mild in flavor, so you want the extra flavor that hot sauce brings.”

But perhaps the most enduring part of the fish-fry tradition is the sense of fellowship it brings. “It’s a simple way of gathering, and it doesn’t require much in terms of ingredients,” Richards said.

The homemade version may be on the wane, Miller said. “Fewer people are frying fish at home because they don’t want to deal with the smell, or they think it’s unhealthy,” he said. “So it’s kind of like a treat to have it now.”

Powell sees her restaurant, Mel’s, as a means for her community to continue the tradition. “We’re busy every Friday night.”

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Yield: 4 servings

Total time: 35 minutes, plus marinating

2 cups (16 ounces) whole buttermilk

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon hot sauce, plus more for serving

1/4 teaspoon granulated garlic or garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon granulated onion or onion powder

4 teaspoons kosher salt

1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

1 1/2 pounds catfish fillets, cut crosswise into 2-inch pieces

2 cups (about 8 1/2 ounces) plain yellow cornmeal

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

4 cups (32 ounces) vegetable oil

1. Combine the buttermilk, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, granulated garlic, granulated onion and 1 teaspoon each of the salt and black pepper in a large bowl or large resealable plastic freezer bag. Add catfish pieces; cover or seal and refrigerate for 2 to 8 hours.

2. Whisk together the cornmeal, cayenne and remaining 3 teaspoons salt and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper in a shallow dish or pie pan.

3. Heat the oil in a 12-inch skillet to 350 degrees over medium heat.

4. Remove the catfish from the buttermilk mixture and dredge in the cornmeal. Let stand 5 minutes.

5. Fry the catfish (large pieces first), in batches, until golden brown, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Drain on a plate lined with paper towels. Serve with additional hot sauce.