Wednesday, May 23, 2007
SOUL FOOD FOR THE FISHERMAN
Everybody move back a step. I want to explode a myth.
Despite what you may have heard, fishermen do not gobble down stuff that would gag a Toggenburg goat and call it a meal. Not all the time anyway.
Quite naturally, fishermen hear a different dinner bell when it comes time to eat.
By necessity, their choice of food on rivers and lakes leans in the direction of what you might call "the basics." Remember, it isn’t always convenient to fry fritters on a boat paddle.
But that doesn’t mean fishermen aren’t cultured people, or that you should be afraid to invite one to dinner when friends are visiting from centers of culture such as Bulls Gap or Norton.
It’s just that fishermen unerringly show a preference for the simple instead of the complex, the familiar instead of the esoteric.
In other words, rat cheese over Rambouillet. Baloney over Brie.
The problem with fishermen’s food is that no one gives it much thought. Today you can buy cutesy prepackaged meals for almost any endeavor except fishing.
Want to hike a mountain? First, check out the latest issue of "Charge! The Mongolian Mountain Climber’s Journal." It lists a dozen outlets for lightweight, nutritious foods. Plan to rob a bank and run from the law for two weeks? Here. Take several of these packages along.
To compensate, fishermen must think ahead. They must do what the food industry refuses to do.
Take Elmer, my old friend and Southwest Virginia boyhood idol. In an arid world where grownups bragged they were too busy to fish, Elmer was a refreshing oasis of a man. He took the time to go fishing. And to take a boy.
Elmer made something he called "carp bait." Perhaps I’ll forget an ingredient or two, but the end result was a humongous biscuit about the size of a ’48 Buick hubcap. I seem to recall he used flour, buttermilk, molasses maybe, and vanilla extract for sure. He may have used cotton batting to hold it all together, but too much time has passed and I’m not certain.
What I can be sure of is that Elmer was a man ahead of his time, a visionary if you will. You think we ever went hungry on the banks of the North Fork of the Holston River?
Not hardly. When the carp weren’t biting, we’d eat the bait.
Today there’s plenty of packaged and tinned junk on the market. Fishermen often have to buy it to keep body and soul together while on the water.
Even worse, much of what’s available comes straight from store to river with built-in problems.
Let’s consider the greatest lifesaver of them all, the ubiquitous Vienna sausage.
How do you get the first one out? Do you dig in with your fingernails? Even if you’re fishing with nightcrawlers?
The first Vienna sausage you go for is invariably in the center of the can. Without fail, it breaks off in the middle. How do you get the other one out, now that your mind is on fishing worms?
I’m not through with Vienna sausage yet.
What do you do with that unidentifiable juice at the bottom of the can? Is it an outdoor elixir? Do you turn it up, drink it and howl at the moon?
From a practical standpoint, do you pour it overboard and create a chum line beside the boat?
And what in heaven’s name do you do with the stuff in winter when it congeals like Jell-O in the can and on the sausages?
And finally, once the meal is finished, do you dare read the contents of the can to your fishing partner, who as a matter of course, carries Maalox in his tackle box where his pork rind jar is supposed to be, and who is scheduled for stomach surgery on Monday?
If you’re looking for something to eat while fishing, forget much of the pretentious health food with an outdoor orientation and pictures of mountains on the package.
I love trail mix as much as anyone, but I love it because it contains enough sugar to satisfy the most desperate need for a dextrose high.
Truth is, you have to be flexible.
One day many years ago Elmer and I were going carp fishing. First, though, he had to stop by a store and pick up a couple of ingredients for his carp dough.
Elmer needed buttermilk. Trouble is, we went to a new store where the owner didn’t know Elmer, and therefore didn’t know what he was looking for. Elmer couldn’t pronounce buttermilk, and neither of us could spell it.
We settled that delightful day for RCs in glass bottles and big thick Moon Pies.
If you can find them, they still make a memorable combination.
END
Comments:
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Garvey, I've been reading you for more years than I want to admit, but this is one of your best ones. The part about getting the Vienna sausage out of the can when you are fishing with nightcrawlers hit awful close to home. Just as I stick my pocket knife into that middle one, I always think about what I have used it for in the past, even though I try not to. I keep some Viennas, Beany Weenies and crackers around the house so I can feel like I'm fishing when I can't go.
# posted by 
: 5:14 PM
: 5:14 PM
I now realize that the vienna sausages in my father-in-law's tackle box are not a personality quirk but part of a long standing tradition.
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