Michael (Piedmont) wrote:
> Catfish - How to Catch 'Em and Cook 'Em
> By Pat Leff Hartwell
> (As published in Utah Fishing magazine)
>
> "How did you catch that thing? What do you do with it?"
>
> These are two of the most common questions my husband and I are
> asked when we come into dock with a livewell full of catfish. The old
> opinion sticks, no matter how worldly and informed people become,
> that catfish are a trash fish and therefore not fit for eating.
>
> They are not inedible, folks, and you don't have to be poor and
> living on the Bayou to enjoy them.
> Michael2590

We like farm-raised catfish - I use a flour>egg and water>panko coating
and they're delicious that way.

However, we've also caught our share of catfish in a large pond/lake
where I used to work. My husband and sons would go outside at night,
drive some electrical something into the ground, then wait for all the
worms to come up in panic. Off we'd go the next morning. We caught
quite a lot of catfish but my kids and thought they were so
repulsive-looking that we wouldn't eat them and we'd give them to other
fishermen, to their delight.

Well, we wondered what we were missing so brought home the next batch
and threw the string of fish into the laundry tray to deal with later.
We then totally forgot them - in horror, I remembered them around
midnight and thought, "to hxxx with'em". Horror of horrors - nobody
told me they had a secondary breathing system! The next morning, those
things were breathing in big gulps, staring at me, whiskers waving,
saying, "Save me, save me!". That's when I learned that I was a
totally merciless human being. They made good garden fertilizer,
though.