The story of a kind man I never met and the catfish for which he became famous
By Ari Weinzweig
Uncle Joe Burrough’s Whole Fried Catfish used to be a regular dish on the Roadhouse menu, and now pops up as a seasonal special. I’m glad we keep bringing it back—I tried some the other day for the first time in a long while and was reminded just how tasty it truly is. Moist, meaty, delicate, with the crunch of the super flavorful Anson Mills artisan cornmeal on the outside, and a sprinkling of garlic salt that adds a bit of culinary embroidery to an already excellent dish. It’s served up alongside the Anson Mills grits (made with a different corn and a different milling texture than the cornmeal), long-cooked collard greens, and a ramekin of mustard coleslaw. Having this classic fried catfish for dinner would be the making of a great night!
In “A Taste of Zingerman’s Food Philosophy,” I encourage all of us (myself included) to “Get curious about the story behind your food.” Without knowing the story, I always say, the food may be fine—but we’re missing so much of the background that makes it what it is. In the same way that knowing a person only by their job title or as an offshoot of their family tree does them a disservice, it is true for food. We need to know the story to truly know, appreciate, and understand what we’re eating.
About Joe Burroughs
The complete story of this catfish, though, actually started for me in a wholly unexpected place—with my friend Peggy Markel. I’d met Peggy traveling in Italy ages ago, and she’s been actively involved in Zingerman’s Food Tours to Tuscany, Morocco, and more for longer than I can remember. I never knew it until our conversation turned to catfish one day—right around the time we were getting ready to open the Roadhouse—but it turned out that, although Peggy splits her time between Boulder, Colorado, and Italy, she was actually born and raised in North Alabama. And her dad, “Uncle” Joe Burroughs, she told me, had cooked catfish almost every Friday night in the small town of Albertville, where she was raised. As she explains:
My father was creative and artistic. He expressed himself best as a gardener and cook. … He had a passion for frying catfish. He always wanted his own fried catfish joint. He was famous down there. People came from far and wide to our house for some of “Uncle Joe’s famous catfish.” It was a hot ticket. My dad had a barbecue pit in the backyard that he rigged a gas line to. He would heat a deep, oblong cast-iron skillet full of Mazola oil. Soon after, those delectable filets, lightly dusted with cornmeal from being shaken in a paper sack, would be sprinkled with the “secret ingredient” and expertly slipped into the simmering hot oil. We never had enough money to realize his dream of his own “Catfish Café,” but we had one, anyway, every Friday night at our house, with people going crazy over crispy fried catfish.
You might have noticed the phrase “secret ingredient” in that lovely description. The secret, in fact, was garlic salt—certainly not something I typically use much of in my cooking these days. But if Peggy’s dad was making great catfish with that much success for so long, it seemed sort of silly not to try out his tip. And to this day, that’s what we do!
If you haven’t yet had this tasty Southern treat, the fish comes out to the table looking really great, with its crisp, cornmeal-crusted tail curled around a little pile of freshly made hush puppies, along with sides of Roadhouse coleslaw, homemade tartar sauce, and hot sauce. In tribute to Peggy’s dad, it’s been called “Uncle Joe’s Fried Catfish Platter” ever since we opened. Uncle Joe Burroughs passed away in 2008, and his story strikes me as capturing the essence of what we do here—the connection among good people, good food, community, and caring about those around you. He never got to have his own restaurant, which makes me feel all the more honored that we can pay homage to him by putting his name on our menu here in Southeast Michigan.