Desperation and doing it the old way.
This terrible year has brought bad things to Haywire's house. One of the lesser evils has been the fact that my supply of Spanish and sheepshead caught early in the season has run out despite draconian rationing. Our power was out for a time after Sally went through and I used that as motivation to clean out the freezers, right down to the bottom, and in doing so I discovered a couple of packages of Spanish from over a year ago. Patsy and I were fish hungry so we thawed them out and they passed the sniff test (vacuum sealed). We figured we'd try them and if they didn''t taste good we'd spit 'em out and cook a pot of oatmeal. I couldn't find any of the usual frying meal that we normally use, but did have a package of regular old corn meal, so I used that with a little salt. I'm not going to try and tell you that it turned out as good as fresh fish, but I've sure had worse in restaurants. So, I figure it's not really necessary to throw out that older fish---I'll just keep it in a corner of the freezer and serve it when those relatives I don't like swarm in to visit and freeload.
Okay, I've said all that to say this; you don't have to get fancy with your fish. Just roll the fillet in corn meal and fry it. No milk soak, no seasonings. It brought back happy memories of my youth. Can't wait to try in on really fresh fish.
