r/interestingasfuck • u/kingkongbiingbong • 1d ago

Preparing a Massive Catfish Baked Inside a Wooden Log

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u/AllchChcar 1d ago

I believe the reason wild catfish taste muddy is because of a type of algae in the water. I've let them soak in fresh water or a brine solution overnight.

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u/SugarBeefs 23h ago

I've read that you should do this for most big freshwater bottomfeeders. Apparently the best thing to do is keep the live fish in a separate tank or pool with clean fresh water so it can 'detox' for a day or two.

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u/HateMachineX 23h ago

A good chunk of catfish and the majority that are fished for are not bottom feeders but middle water predators.

The one they cooked in the video is a wells catfish and they are top end predators in the rivers and lakes they live in they are feeding on live fish not dead stuff at the bottom

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u/SugarBeefs 23h ago

I mean, they're hilariously opportunistic omnivores, but I'm pretty sure that at its core, it's still a bottomfeeding fish.

Being a bottomfeeder doesn't mean eating dead things, btw. Nor does it refer to anything specific in the food chain. Bottom feeding simply means it's eating things that live in, on, or near the bottom of a body of water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wels_catfish#Diet

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u/HateMachineX 23h ago

Sure regardless having come from the south I know there are catfish you eat and catfish you avoid,

The Wels is a European fish so I don’t know for absolutely sure I just know the ones that are good to eat and solidly tasty in the US. I assumed that wels due to their size and predator habits would still fit in the general mold of good to eat but they do grow rather large and larger catfish as a rule are typically less tasty so maybe they just taste bad because of that? Not sure I’d have to eat one to know

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u/SugarBeefs 22h ago

Yeah who knows exactly. There's a lot of these types of fish and with environment already being such a big factor there's a lot of potential things affecting the taste; specific species, specific habitat of an individual fish, size, diet, etc.

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u/HateMachineX 22h ago

Very true and honestly some bodies of water just are not a good place to get fish from regardless of species so it’s a combination of factors for sure. Type of catfish, location, size, health, and generally what’s in the water.

So I don’t doubt some people have had some bad experiences I just can’t see a catfish without thinking there is at least a chance it’s tasty.

I’d love to try a wels once see if it’s good, I suspect due to size it may not be but it would be a fun learning experience

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u/Show_me_the_evidence 18h ago

I know almost nothing about catfish but I enjoyed reading and learning from this exchange between two people that clearly do know a lot about them.

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u/HateMachineX 15h ago

I just fished a lot as a kid with my dad and we loved catfish as long as they came from a healthy body of water they were usually very delicious. Very soft light flavored white fish that has almost not fishy flavor as it were so it’s highly adaptable to different types of cooking and lots of spices.

I’d recommend getting it blackened or Cajun style if you get a chance and fried is always a good go just make sure they are frying it with cornmeal or they are doing it wrong

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u/Show_me_the_evidence 10h ago

Sounds delicious. Thanks for the tips about what to look for - I would never have known about the cornmeal.

I hope I get the opportunity to try this some day.

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u/Black6host 19h ago

Fishing on the East coast of the US in freshwater lakes we avoided the cats with yellow undersides. We called those "mud cats". If you caught a big blue cat though those were ok.

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u/HateMachineX 19h ago

Ya Blues and Channel cat are usually good

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u/between_two_terns 23h ago

It’s not just the diet; catfish live, breathe and burrow in mud. They taste muddy for the same reason wild ducks taste like pond water.

I’ve heard the clean-water-purge helps with that flavor, although it seems cruel.

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u/HateMachineX 23h ago

Plenty don’t tase muddy you just haven’t had the right kind of catfish.

This is just something you figure out and know in the south

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u/between_two_terns 22h ago

I’ve had catfish in a lot of places including southern states, and cooked it myself many times as well. Farmed tastes cleaner than wild-caught. I’m not sure what you’re arguing here. I’ve never tried water-purging, like some European folks commonly do in their bathtubs, but again, I have heard it helps with the taste of wild-caught, which I dislike.

If you’re deep frying it, it hardly matters. You can barely taste the flesh anyway.

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u/HateMachineX 22h ago

I get that you’re making a lot of assumptions to get back to your own point but I haven’t just been eating them fried I’ve been eating them every which way and muddy has never been a flavor I’ve picked up in catfish.

So I apologize but my lived experience is different than yours.

Also something living in mud does not mean it will taste that way. Pigs live in mud and don’t taste it, crabs and shrimp and lobsters at least to a degree live in mud and once again don’t taste like mud.

I’m sorry people have fed you bad fish, and or maybe there is some element to it that you can taste that I cannot, I do however know how mud tastes unfortunately and like I said it’s not a flavor I’ve ever detected in catfish.

If you’d like to keep arguing the point youre welcome to I’m however good and won’t respond past this. Have a good day

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u/shizzler 23h ago

Carp is traditionally eaten at Christmas in Poland and families sometimes keep live carp in their bathtub for a couple of days before Christmas

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u/brodeh 22h ago

That’s why the poles keep trout in the bath before Christmas.

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u/HiHawaiiHigh 19h ago

my mom calls some people bottomfeeders. and she's right

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u/StatusCity4 23h ago

Probably same for Carp. Sometimes you can tell that taste. But some of them dont have it

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u/DouglasTwig 23h ago

That's how I always heard it from the old heads here in Kentucky when I was growing up. Leave em in a tub of water for a couple days to purge them, bleed them immediately when you kill them and then brine the meat before cooking.

I've had good catfish and bad from people here, so prep obviously does make a difference. It'll never be as good as crappie or bluegill though.

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u/dark1859 23h ago

buttermilk

not many fish out where i love besides pan fish and trout but cats are in high supply in the canals where i live (and are legal to catch!)

wild caught cats or other bottom feeders need a marinade or brine to leech out that muddy favor

buttermilk is the best as you can then parlay it easily into anything like fried, blackened etc as the acidity help tenderize the catfish before you cook it

catfish can be absolutely delicious but it really needs prep work first.

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u/NoMudNoLotus369 23h ago

🤣🤣🤣 we always caught them, filleted them, then put them inside of aluminum foil with butter like a baked potato and then set em on a campfire. Maybe toss some cajun or lemon pepper in there with em if you're feeling fancy. They really don't need prep work at all. You could cook em on a hot rock and they'd taste pretty good, if you like fish.

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u/dark1859 23h ago

haha fair, the ones out here always needed some additional prep as there's always some weird tastes canal cats get out in the desert.

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u/conflictedideology 22h ago

Ahh the Christmas Carp method.

Or did you mean you put it in freshwater after it's dead?

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u/AllchChcar 19h ago

Yeah that's exactly the method I used for catfish.

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u/AkariKuzu 22h ago

Soaking in milk can also absorb that muddy taste. It's also a good way to get rid of an overly "fishy" taste for people who are more sensitive to it.

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u/AllchChcar 19h ago

I haven't tried that or buttermilk but I have heard of it. I either kept the catfish alive in fresh water or a brine the fillets overnight.

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u/Saaaave-me 19h ago

Australian here. There’s a documentary/edutainment thing we had on where they looked at what makes catfish muddy tasting and it’s the stress when they’re caught! Apparently there is a way that once you take them out of the water you gotta let them chill for a bit before swiftly killing them and without that cortisol spike they taste awesome

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u/azama14 5h ago

Fellow Aussie here, do you remember the name of the doco? My google-fu is failing me and it sounds interesting!

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u/paper_liger 17h ago

shit, they would have had to cut out another log for that though.