Sena cooked up some breaded catfish nuggets the other night. They were not May Reese’s hand-battered catfish made famous by John Heim aka Big Mo on KCCK radio 88.3 on the Big Mo Blues Show every Friday night—but they will do.
They’re packed with nitrates, as Big Mo always says.
We’ve never eaten catfish, so this was historic for us. We made a little tartar sauce using Miracle Whip (not mayo!), pickles, and chives. Sena made faces while placing the nuggets into the oil for frying.
I thought they were very tasty. Sena found several little bones in her nuggets, some of which she transferred to my plate. My pieces didn’t have any bones, but I found a few in one of the pieces she gave me. Chick Filet Polynesian sauce was good with catfish as well as tartar sauce. Tartar sauce does not contain cream of tartar, I finally found out. It’s just mayo-based sauce (if you don’t have Miracle Whip) and the name comes from the Tartar family. We don’t know them.
Sena really did want to try catfish. But we’ll never have catfish again. What with bones and a fishy smell (which I didn’t notice), we’ll be sticking with fish like salmon, perch, sole, haddock, and the occasional Leviathan which, incidentally, is mentioned in the Old Testament Bible in the Book of Amos. Usually, I just arm wrestle them until they surrender from exhaustion and obligingly collapse into a very large frying pan.
I found out that some people proclaim on the internet that catfish nuggets don’t have bones in them. We found out that’s not true. They are trimmings that aren’t big enough to sell as fillets, which are also said to be strips of boneless meat. Some people like to stretch the truth. Others need a polygraph test.
I don’t know if Big Mo would endorse catfish nuggets. They are breaded. I don’t know if they’re hand-battered. Evidently May Reese is not involved in their production and sale.
I suspect they might be packed with nitrates, but we ate all of them and there are no nuggets left for scientific testing.
Go Retire Psychiatrist 
I hadn’t read about nitrates in catfish before – but now I will have to investigate. Thanks for posting this!
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Hi Lillie, your blog looks very interesting! Thanks for your comment about MayRee’s hand-battered catfish. Try listening to the Big Mo Blues Show on KCCKdotorg (Iowa radio station) on Friday nights at 6 PM CST. He talks about MayRee and it’s a funny yarn. You might ask him about it. He welcomes calls and emails. Try bigmo@kcckdotorg.
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