What's the NEXT Louisville food tradition?

I've eaten my fair share of line caught "wild" catfish from lakes in Kentucky. I think they taste great, but there is no doubt that they are catfish. I wouldn't describe the taste as "muddy" but it is unique to catfish. Not sure about the farm raised variety.

As an aside if you get catfish from a restaurant near one of Kentucky's large reservoirs, it is likely to be wild. There is commercial fishing allowed on these lakes, and the fisherman sell much of their catch to local restaurants.

[Robin Garr]

I've eaten my fair share of line caught "wild" catfish from lakes in Kentucky. I think they taste great, but there is no doubt that they are catfish. I wouldn't describe the taste as "muddy" but it is unique to catfish. Not sure about the farm raised variety.

Okay, you got me Googling. Here's some pretty definitive info:

The most common cause of flavor
problems in catfish raised in
northwest Mississippi, southeast
Arkansas, and northeast Louisiana
is caused by 2-methylisoborneol
(MIB). The chemical causes a
unique musty-medicinal off-flavor
that can be quite intense and
disagreeable. In catfish ponds,
MIB is nearly always produced
by the microscopic blue-green
alga Oscillatoria perornata,
although in other environments
MIB can be produced by several
other species of blue-green algae ...

Full report from the Southern Regional Aquaculture Center:
http://govdocs.aquake.org/cgi/reprint/2 ... 270040.pdf

As an aside if you get catfish from a restaurant near one of Kentucky's large reservoirs, it is likely to be wild. There is commercial fishing allowed on these lakes, and the fisherman sell much of their catch to local restaurants.

Innaresting! Thanks ...

I wasn't disagreeing with you, just pointing out that even "wild" catfish have a distinctive "catfish" flavor. Again, not sure I would describe it as muddy, and certainly not medicinal, but you wouldn't mistake it for tilapia. I fried up some catfish fillets the other night and served them with a really spicy chiptole mayo instead of tartar sauce. Good eats!

[Robin Garr]

I wasn't disagreeing with you, just pointing out that even "wild" catfish have a distinctive "catfish" flavor.

Got it! And I didn't think you were disagreeing, I was just adding some more info.

Again, not sure I would describe it as muddy, and certainly not medicinal, but you wouldn't mistake it for tilapia. I fried up some catfish fillets the other night and served them with a really spicy chiptole mayo instead of tartar sauce. Good eats!

Whatever that green-algae-imparted character is, though, I do sometimes find it in tilapia ... which is also usually farm-raised.

I love fish, and I love shellfish even more, but neither catfish nor tilapia rank high on my list of favorites.

LOL. tilapia was a bad example because I can't say that I've ever had it! I just assumed it was a mild flavored specimen, for those folks who like fish as long as it doesn't taste like fish.

to be honest I am not a fan of any farm raised fish at all. farm raised salmon is awful.

[Robin Garr]

farm raised salmon is awful.

No joke! I never fully realized how lackluster farm-raised Atlantic salmon is until I did a taste test one year. Hold on, I wrote it up, there's gotta be a hotlink around here somewhere ... okay, here it is, complete with a very telling picture:

<b>Copper River salmon: Worth the hype?</b>

Don't lose your focus on what this thread is about...Rolled Oysters are not a new ground breaking dish either.... And as much as I would love to have a disccusion about the pros and cons of catfish, I still haven't seen anything mentioned that would be worthy of being the next best Louisville dining item that would be copied around town.

Not even my nomination of the "Louisville style" casserole pizza that got lost in this thread?