By Brenda K. Bredahl
If You Go
No doubt you’ve got your own favorite fish fry. Here are a couple of mine.
The Valley Bar and Grill
The Valley was a true dive bar until a couple of years ago. It’s now been remodeled, but you still stand in line, and on Fridays the line goes out the door into the parking lot. Beer-battered cod, ham, homemade beans and au gratins, tuna salad, potato salad, coleslaw, relish items, and milk from the stainless steel refrigerated machine are served cafeteria-style, just like at Sonny’s. W10299 Hwy. 10 between Ellsworth and Prescott. (715) 425-1018.
Greenwood Supper Club
A favorite among Door County locals and tourists. Fried perch, whitefish, walleye, or pike with fries or potato salad, coleslaw, and rye bread. 9087 County Hwy. A, Fish Creek; (920) 839-2451, doorcountycompass.com.
Have a hankering on any day besides Friday? Culver’s, a fast-food chain born in Sauk City, serves fried cod and walleye (in season) every day, along with another Wisconsin specialty: frozen custard.
When I was growing up, a visit to the grandparents on a Friday meant one thing: fish fry at Sonny’s in Ellsworth. There was no such reward if we went visiting on a Saturday: that meant toiling in the huge vegetable garden and a quick supper of franks fried up in the spider stove after an exhausting day’s work. So when Mom announced we were going to Ellsworth on the weekend, we’d ask, with salivating anticipation: “What day?”
Sonny’s was a typical small-town tavern with a dining room in the back and a huge bar—smelling of smoke and stale beer—up front. On Fridays there were few waitresses, as everything was served cafeteria-style in a narrow hallway between the dining room and the kitchen.
In the days before the term buffet meant temperature-controlled serving carts and ice-filled coolers, Sonny’s laid out its spread on a long white-and-gold-speckled Formica counter, with hot food under bright lights. First there were bowls of cottage cheese, fruit-infused Jell-O, and pickled beets, all of which I skipped to save room for the fish. Then there was herring and crackers, creamy coleslaw, pickles and crinkle-cut carrots, home-baked beans and au gratin potatoes, followed by rolls, butter, lemon wedges, and tartar sauce. At the end of the line was the grand prize: huge chunks of crunchy cod, hand dipped, battered, and piled in gleaming stainless steel. After loading up too much food, you reentered the dining room balancing your laden plate, silverware, and a glass of milk to find the family among the red plastic-covered tablecloths and vinyl-upholstered chairs.
Sometimes my grandpa and my uncle would be there when we arrived, sitting in the bar with friends drinking tap Miller High Life (Grandpa Ed) or Leinie’s (Uncle Earl) and playing euchre or cribbage. Once in a while Grandma would be there too, sipping an old-fashioned. If they were playing for change, she’d have the pile in front of her. She was always good for a nickel or two for the gumball machine. And sometimes after dinner, if we were particularly well behaved, we’d get to go into the bar and play the pinball machines.
Ours was the typical ’sconi experience where on Friday nights the local tavern was a center of family and food, the respite before the weekend of working in the garden or catching up on chores. It’s a ritual worth keeping, and my husband and I are doing our best to pass it on. Many a Friday night we take our son to Bob Smith’s Sports Club in Hudson, to feast on deep-fried perch or pollock with fries, coleslaw, and a roll for a mere $6.50. If the place isn’t too crowded or smoky and if we haven’t eaten ourselves into a stupor, we might take our son to the front bar and enjoy a drink and conversation while he fiddles with the pool table.
Most Wisconsinites know that the best local fish fry is usually a divey tavern in the middle of nowhere—a tradition from the Prohibition days, when tavern owners needed a way to lure customers in to their saloons without liquor.
According to fish fry-ionado and author Jeff Hagen, the Wisconsin fish fry tradition was spawned from the religious foodways of Wisconsin’s large Catholic-German population, especially in the southeastern part of the state. Surely the custom also had something to do with the availability of fresh fish from Lake Michigan to the east, Lake Superior to the north, and scenic St. Croix and mighty Mississippi rivers to the west. Folklorist Janet Gilmore notes that fish was a staple for Great Lakes tribes, so as Ojibwe and immigrant cultures intertwined, fish was a common food enjoyed by both cultures.
Other parts of the country have their own fish fry traditions. In the Deep South, the fish fry was a Saturday night community ritual starting when Depression-era folk caught fish all week and gathered for a weekend potluck, according to historians. Considered one of the first rock-and-roll songs, “Saturday Night Fish Fry,” made popular as a crossover hit recorded by Louis Jordan and his Tympani Five, is a sizzling 1949 jump blues tune that tells of a fish fry gone awry on Rampart Street in New Orleans, and the frenzy was tempered only by the arrival of the police.
Politicians recognize the value of a community fish fry.
Time magazine reporters covered Jimmy Carter’s version, during a summer bicentennial campaign stop at his mother’s house in Plains, Ga. It was time to clean out the pond, so Jimmy, son Chip, and brother Billy netted the menu’s catfish, bass, and bream. The fish were battered in cornmeal (and, presumably, buttermilk), deep fried in peanut oil over open coals, and served with requisite hush puppies, coleslaw, and sliced tomatoes. Billy Beer was yet to be born, however.
In the post-World War II era, fish fries were the highlight of Midwestern church fundraisers and community festivals. The fish boil was a popular event in northern Wisconsin, where you can still find them on the weekends in the state’s Great Lakes towns. VFW legion halls around the state still post with regularity the ubiquitous “AYCE Fish Fry” signs, and the famous American Serb Memorial Hall in Milwaukee serves the “world’s largest” Friday fry in a reception hall atmosphere. (It has a drive-through, but the lines of cars can extend for blocks.)
Just about every Wisconsinite I know has the same memories, whether the Friday fare was cod with au gratins, beans, and rolls to the west; walleye or whitefish with wild rice or boiled red potatoes and white bread to the north; cod, pollock, or haddock with German potato salad or potato pancakes, vinaigrette coleslaw, and rye bread to the southeast; or catfish with hush puppies and sliced tomatoes in the southwestern corner of the state.
The annual community fish fry fundraiser in tiny Cornucopia, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it burg on the south shore of Lake Superior, is one not to miss. On the first Sunday in July, residents fry several thousand of pounds of whitefish and serve it with potato salad, Jell-O, relish items, and white bread. Volunteers seat you at long paper-covered tables and bring you seconds and thirds—it just doesn’t get any better than that. The local fry started around 1945 with a few guys and a cast-iron frying pan over an open fire in honor of the village’s commercial fishing history. It’s no secret, however, as people from near and far line up for blocks to enter the 1916 Bell Town Hall for the lightly battered tender whitefish, fresh from Superior’s cold waters.
“Where’s a good fish fry?” is a regular question from Minnesota friends and acquaintances when they cross the border to Wisconsin. While the neighboring state has its share of walleye and smelt fries, there’s something downright legendary about the Wisconsin fish fry. Maybe it’s the thought of good times with family and friends, the gratitude for a table of plenty, and a custom deeply rooted in community and spirituality. Or maybe it’s simply lust for those hot, crunchy filets of thick, tender fish, washed down with a tall cold one.