Friday Night Fish Fry

by Alissa Donovan

Carrie Bradshaw once said, “In New York, life is what happens when you’re waiting for a table.” I argue that the same is true in Wisconsin during Friday night fish fry season (i.e. Lent).

Let me set the scene: it’s Friday night in small-town Wisconsin (already mentioned, but bear with me), and you are waiting with your family for a table at the local bar and grille. The air is a perfect mixture of lingering cigarette smoke, greasy food, and spilled beer. Three-quarters of the town is huddled around the bar waiting for a table, and the other quarter is behind the bar serving the cheap beer and brandy old-fashioned. You are pressed between a wood-paneled wall and a pull tab dispenser, trying to maintain a conversation over the sound of echoing voices and the radio playing the hits. You run into three people from your high school, and your parents run into two people they know from work. The menu options are limited to: cod dinner, perch dinner, and a fish sandwich.

And there is nowhere in the world you would rather be.

Although the tradition is a direct response to the dietary restrictions imposed on Catholics during the forty days of Lent (no meat on Fridays, but apparently fried fish is encouraged), to many Wisconsin families, fish fry is a weekly tradition year-round.

A proper fish dinner is made up of two to three pieces of fried fish (today it’s usually cod, but sometimes you will have the option for lake perch or walleye), a choice of potato (French fries, baked potato, etc.), coleslaw, tartar sauce, and a lemon wedge. In northern Wisconsin, this meal is accompanied by a piece of untoasted, buttered rye bread and a slice of raw onion. Heaven.

My parents trade fish fry recommendations around the community like baseball cards. In the name of being good Catholics, they endlessly judge anyone who dares to give a bad recommendation. To my family, restaurants are scored for their tartar sauce (utilizing butter pickle relish instead of dill is an immediate disqualification), breading style (breading that is too thick is another immediate disqualification), and quality of the brandy old fashioneds (making a brandy old fashioned from a pre-mix, you guessed it… immediate disqualification). Bonus points are awarded for salad bars, soup du jour options that exceed clam chowder, and creative potato choices (i.e., cheesy hashbrowns). Ambiance is not a part of the equation, as almost all restaurants serving fish fry are more or less the same: wood paneling, abundant taxidermy decor, dim lighting, and clear plastic plates.

Although the food is great and will always make my mouth water just at the thought, it is truly the social aspect of fish fries that makes these dinners so special. When an entire town has the same dinner plans, the wait time for tables can be shockingly long. But the time we spent huddled around a corner of the bar waiting for our table becomes, in a way, more cherished than the meal itself. Uninterrupted quality time over seven-dollar cocktails becomes a weekly, generational tradition that has survived even as we move away, grow older, and get far too busy. Friday nights were moments of quality time without any distraction: nobody is scanning a menu because we already know the four menu options by heart, and nobody is looking at their phone because there is never any reception at the bar. On these weekly occasions, we can easily connect as a family and bump into friends doing the same. I will always cherish these simple meals and will always request them when I fly home. And while others complain when the hostess gives an hour wait time, I’m secretly pleased.