I live in Mississippi... we eat the shit for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

As I sort of alluded to earlier in the thread, if you've never been to a Catfish House, you need to check one out. Some are buffet... but the best ones are family style. Tons of fried catfish, hushpuppies, cole slaw. Awesome sides like pickled tomato relish. Always nice pies and cakes for desserts.

In the dry south (no booze), they're like the bars of the South. People drive from counties around to hit the catfish house on a Friday or Saturday night. Everyone congregates there and sees their friends. When I visited my relatives in S. Arkansas growing up, we'd drive over an hour (2 counties away) on Friday night to hit the catfish house.

heh, yup

It sounded great until the no booze part.

I love it. Has a nice meaty taste to it, not as fishy as something like trout but not as bland as haddock/cod.

Two chains that do it well: Texas Roadhouse, and Cracker Barrel. At TR, they bread and fry it in a nice cornmealy breading, and you get four big-ass pieces with a tasty mustard dipping sauce. Kicks the ass of fish and chips any day. At Cracker Barrel, I get it with the cajun spices, and it's really damn good.

Catfish is delicious. Even more-so if you caught it yourself.

They're easy mode fishing, too... You throw out 3 lines or so (each) late at night, and kick back on the dock and drink beer and talk. When you get a good hit, everyone scrambles... it's a blast.

I'd love to find one of those.

My name isn't TF.

End with a prep, no comma, lower-case "e"?!!!111221

Oh, noez.

Don't forget about the fried dill pickles and frog legs :)

I've eaten at Jerry's Fishhouse in Florence, MS since I could walk. Place is a funny igloo looking place.. Only photo I can find:
http://jackson.metromix.com/content_...4x3/240/653601

edit: heh, http://jerryscatfishhouse.com/index.htm

Oh, shit!

http://www.thekingfishcafe.com/

I know it. It's a real shame. There's something about the fish houses that goes with teetotaling. Even up here in liberal Northwest Arkansas that is wet, the catfishes houses are all dry.

We heard rumor of one out in the country that was supposedly BYOB. We went to check it out on a Friday night. Being hesitant to just bust up in there with our beer (past experience told us this was a bad idea), we left it in the car and scoped the joint out. Walking in, the cake in the buffet was decorated.... with a bible verse. AT that point, we figured out we'd been misled and we'd found yet another dry catfish house.

I've yet to find a catfish house that serves beer. It's really strange.

I think we pass that joint (or one just like it) on our way down to the Destin area every year. It is between Jackson and Hattiesburg?

Yup. About 5 miles south of Jackson on 49. You should definitely stop in.

Open one up. It would be a gold mine.

May have to do it. That's close to my least favorite stretch of the drive (only one worse is coming in to mobile on that shitty highway), so breaking it up with a anticipated catfish stop might be the trick to making it more enjoyable. I hate that ****ing highway between Jackson and Hattiesburg. Those rolling hills and lack of shoulders are frightening. That being said, there are lots of interesting roadside stands and such in that section.