Ok, so this is a bit odd, but I'm working on a grad school project and was curious.

Does anybody know how people preserved catfish around the Depression Era? I have plenty of information via my grandmother about food prep when she was growing up in the 20s and 30s but none on fish preservation. I know you can salt, dry, smoke, and pickle fish, but was this a common thing done to catfish in the 1920s and 30s or even now? I've had pickled trout and pike, but never kitten fish.

My granpa tells me stories all the time about his fishing trips, only thing he says though is that what he caught they ate, never mentions preserving

Yeah, my Grandpaw was the same, had he not been a good fisherman and a good varmint hunter his family would have starved to death. Luckily he was able to buy a small farm with several stock-ponds and lots of woods after he came back from WWI through the Veterans administration.So they had a good supply of fish, squirrel,turtles, ducks and (gulp) the occasional opossum. I have heard stories of folks canning fish back in those days. They used glass jars to do this. They canned just about anything back then. The fish did not have to be pickled to preserve it.There weren't a lot of choices for food preservation of course. And the fish or other canned meats could still be fried or cooked in other ways to make it enjoyable to eat. But the fact remained, at least in this part of the country,a man could supply his family with fresh fish, game or fowl pretty much year round if he lived out in the country. So most of my Grandmaw's canning efforts went into putting up things that were not available much of the year. Things like garden vegetables and fruits and such. Now one thing you might want to research into a bit was the phenomenon of what was called "Fish Camp." Fish camp was a place where groups of men would gather for several days on end and make serious production of running trotlines, juglines etc, along with a bit of whiskey drinking and carrying on of course. But this wasn't done for the sport of fishing. It was done to stock up on food for the family. These would have been the guys that would have had lots of fish that had to be preserved one way or the other. I still here of guys having a fish camp every now and then,

Interesting question that I don't know the answer to, but back then folks knew how to survive. It would be a different story if people were forced into that kind of situation today.

My dad was born in 1916. He has told of eating about everything that would move. As for catfish mostly Mud Cat Bull Head they would fry them up but would not skin them they would scald and scrap them removing the slime leaving the skin ( more fat) As for rough fish carp and the like if you were well off enough to own a presser canner then you would make fish patties ( poor boy salmon)

My grandmother used to can fish in a pressure cooker. Think canned tuna, only it is other species of fish and in a jar rather than a metal can. She also canned pork (ham). Very good. I've thought of giving it a try myself.

Not catfish but up in michigan they pickle it.

Yessir, you needed to pressure cook the meats and fish to insure safety.

You are probably going to think I am mocking you, but here goes...


When depression era Texans needed to keep something cold, they got ice from 7-11...well sort of...

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/dhs02

The parent company of 7-11, The Southland Corporation, got its start by manufacturing and delivering blocks of ice for "Ice Boxes". The blocks of ice where pretty big and customers used a rotating sign on the front of their house to indicate to the iceman how much ice they needed. In the summer, they needed a lot, in the winter, not so much. My dad told me that his family did not have a refrigerator until the early 1950s, and he can remember the iceman delivering ice.

Interesting stories guys, and thanks for the information. I still have interview tapes from my grandparents about all types of food preparation when I was interviewing several years ago, but very little on fish. Unfortunately, they are not around anymore to ask any follow up questions. That's why I came asking here.

I can second the blocks of ice. We had an ice house in the 50's. you could buy blocks or buy crushed. Fish frozen in bags of water, i.e. in ice cubes keep forever.

I can ask my Mom & answer later this weekend. But I agree with a lot of folks here, most catfish were eaten rather sooner. And yes, most were bullheads (MudCats).

I know I'm taking this off topic a bit, but this is an interesting conversation and something I know quite a bit about. The problem for millions of people in the depression was that they had no money. There was no money for ice from the ice house. I am lucky because I got to visit the house my mother grew up in several times when I was a child. It was still standing on the property even after my Grandparents sold the farm and moved to town (Whitesboro.) It's hard to believe how rough things were back then until you see how it really was. The house was very small, It had a small living area that was also where my mother and her sister slept. It had a small kitchen which back in the depression days did not have running water or any kind of appliance except a wood-burning stove. There was no electricity. Light was from kerosene lanterns. There was one tiny bedroom that my Grandparents slept in and a screened in porch whew my Uncle Arthur slept. During the winter they would put up a canvas tarp around the porch. Of course there was no bathroom. Just an outhouse. Their water came from a hand-dug brick lined well at the front of the house. If a frog or a stray cat fell in it and died...well you just dealt with it. The house was constructed with one layer of siding boards that were about 3/8 of an inch thick. That was it. I have a piece of that wall board hanging in my living room just to remind me how lucky and blessed I am compared to how things could be. During the winter they would glue newspaper on the walls inside to keep the wind from blowing through the cracks in the wood. They would also heat bricks in the wood-stove, wrap them in towels and place them in their beds for warmth. During the summer they had to place jar lids filled with coal oil under their bed-post legs to keep the bugs from crawling up them. Bathing was done once or twice a week in a washtub. I have a picture of my mother as a youngster bathing in a tub out in the front of the house. There is a chicken standing about 3 feet from her. Like I said...there was NO money. The kids got shoes once a year and wore underwear made from flour sack cloth. The whole family would do field labor every chance they got. The going rate for chopping cotton from dawn to dusk was a dollar a day, This was how it was in Rural America back then. Really not that long ago. The scary thing is that we are screwing up our economy so badly now that there is the very real possibility of this level of poverty happening again for many people. I am amused at what is considered poverty today.

Let me add a few to your list ...

No inner ceiling so you could see the spiders, spiderwebs & wasps (dirtdoppers & such too).

You swept the dirt floors smooth.

You kept your vehicle running (held together) with baling wire & the likes.

You did not mix fresh milk from the cows with eating fish, as it created some sort of toxin & you would get sick.

LOL! Lord knows this list could get terribly long. But I gotta throw out just a few more. On the subject of vehicles...on the oft chance the Model A would run, you might have to walk in front of it coming home from town holding a lantern cause the headlights don't work.

In my dads case, his daddy died when he was seven years old, leaving a widower with 4 boys to feed. A snack between meals would be some dry spaghetti. On the 4th of July you tied baling wire to corn cobs and soaked them in kerosene. Lit them and then twirled them around and cast them up in the air. And yes...Lynn...you knew those spiders on the ceiling in the outhouse were black widows, because they were.

Sorry bout the hijack pixelfish, I'll stop.