Yesterday after PT I picked up my cousin Ellie and drove to Lucedale. We ate at a fish camp. (This is what catfish restaurants are called in the deep south.)Â These establishments are only open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings.
The Rocky Creek catfish place has rockers on the front porch and an American flag flying out front. The parking lot was crowded. There's a Baptist church across the road and beautiful farmland all around, green with soybeans and cotton. Neat houses nestle among the fields.Â
The interior of the catfish restaurant is paneled with cypress, a honey colored wood with small knotty whorls. There's antique kitsch on the walls--old Coca Cola signs, etc.  There's also an oxen yoke; mounted deer heads; and a wild boar's head from a hog killed in the Chickasawhay River swamp.
The menu is catfish, whole or fillets, coated with cornmeal and fried in peanut oil, sweet coleslaw, hushpuppies,and french fries. Slices of white onion and lemon on request, and sweet tea. That's it. No desserts are served at these places. They bring you all you can eat then you go home and sleep it off.
Deep south Mississippi is the only place where this menu is done to perfection, a regional specialty.
Bye y'all, daybreak has come. Susil
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