INGREDIENTS
8 (4 ounce) catfish fillets
1 quart oil (sweated from a road stand shambled & split)
2 cups buttermilk
2 cups cornmeal, thick as silt
1 cup flour
1 smidge seasonin’ salt
1 tsp cayenne (make it hot)
2 tsp pepper
1 pinch of garlic salt
½ tsp onion powder
1 dash of Old Bay to make it pop
1 cast iron skillet, seasoned till it shine
1 unrelenting hankerin’ for home
DIRECTIONS
1. Stroll up to your monger as he somersaults the brine-stink of the sea into an ice chest, ask him for two pounds of catfish & if his nose puckers like a pickled plum, he’ll call it mud cat or polliwog or bottom feeder of the bog. Pretend he ain’t talkin’ bout you.
2. Soak fillets in buttermilk till the fish forgets it never was a fish.
3. Combine cornmeal in a shallow dish with all your spices, remember your Momma’s hand heavy on the seasonin’ salt, lick a cloud of Old Bay off your thumb—your numb tongue prods your teeth like a crawfish castle.
4. Heat the oil. Say it slow so it don’t gloss your throat. A whispered tongue-twister—oil, boil, pin & pen—say it like you belong, then say it again.
5. Your first week livin’ in the Big City, you bought a dress: black, silver buttons down the back, & everywhere you went you smelled free. Now, before you walk the block to the bus stop, you pop into your closet, grab the dress, dab its hem to your carotid, profit from the prophet power cozying around you like an opal necklace—bread the catfish, shake the excess.
6. Sing a little Stella. Fry the fish in batches. Tell the LORD he ain’t gotta move your mountains. (Move from them yourself.)
Note: prod fillets till the bubbles stop, the catfish gold & fixin’ to float.
—Diamond Forde (Bellingham Review)