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| Horace & Dickie's Seafood, 12th and H Streets NE, Washington, DC. |
As far back as I can remember we always ate fried fish on Friday nights. We weren’t Catholic like many of our neighbors, but went meatless nonetheless, due in part to living on the shore where there was always fresh sea food in abundance. My grandmother would hard-fry porgies and mullet to a golden crisp and served them with hot, creamy buttery grits, smothered cabbage and hot-water corn bread. Long before Dr. Henry Heimlich publicized his famous maneuver in 1974, the bony fish we ate made it necessary for our family to develop similar methods to aid a choking victim.
Some of my fondest memories are of the end of the work week in my Aunt Sarah Bell’s tiny four-room apartment above the garage behind our house in Long Branch, New Jersey. At the bottom of the steps, leading to the kitchen you could smell hot grease and burning hair as my cousin, Rachel, usually fried Aunt Sarah’s hair on the same night. Three burners on the stove would be in use with whiting frying on one, potatoes boiling on another, and straightening comb and Marcel rods, heating on another. Mr. Bell used an egg and seasoned meal to coat his fish before frying, a practice that I continue to this day. It comes out perfect each time.
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| Fried whiting at FGS Headquarters |
My love for fried fish began at home, but follows everywhere I go. In New Orleans I had golden-fried catfish with the spicy remoulade sauce everyone in the Big Easy seems able to make. In Mount Vernon, Georgia I can always have some of Aunt Nut Pie’s hard-fry with brown mustard or outdoor-fried chowder cat between two pieces of light bread, with the tail curved around the top piece like Billy fried it while still moving. In Chicago I must have some sweet, lemon-peppered perch from the side of the lake where they farm-raise powder-blue and pink alligators for Sunday shoes.
Perhaps my favorite place to have fried fish is
Horace and Dickie’s at 12
th and H Streets NE in Washington, DC. One afternoon more than a decade ago, my very dear friend and Fat Girl Snack connoisseur, Clayton Juan Jackson IV (May 18, 1974 – Apr. 23, 2001), schlepped me over to the Northeast quadrant location to stand on a line that spilled out the door and curved onto the sidewalk. I was a little upset because it was ridiculously hot in DC that day, but was also a little excited because people don’t stand on line in heat for something not worth the trouble.
When it was our turn to step inside, a rack of bread blocked my view but once around I found myself out of the fire into the pan. It literally felt like you were frying in hot oil. Even the walls were greasy. Loud exhaust fans sucked out some of the hot air while big tall oscillators, blew around what was left. Over the counter where sat a big plastic tip jar, fashioned from a not too long-finished vinegar gallon jug, I saw whiting being fried to golden perfection and a pot of collard greens, bubbling and boiling. Cooks and cashiers shouted to each other above the din.
“What you having?” shouted a brother who looked as though he woke up on a park bench or in a holding cell that morning.
Clayton had already told me to order the four-piece sandwich.
“White or wheat?”
I opted for the “healthy” bread and a side of collard greens to make the meal even healthier, but cancelled out all the health when I chose a piece of pound cake to top off the order. My eyes widened with delight at the sight of four piping hot pieces of whiting on a bed of wheat bread and grew wider with each additional piece of fish, piled upon the last. The lid eventually closed on a container with enough fish for two meals. I would eat them both.
“Don’t forget my jug,” he called as I headed to the cashier.
I dropped my change in the tip jug as I picked up my order and brushed past the line that seemed to have grown longer.
I have been back to Horace and Dickie’s as many times as I have been back to DC. I believe my friend would be pleased that I honor his memory each time I return. The location and entertaining counter staff have not changed, but the décor and ventilation have upgraded over the years. Their web site boasts “Simplicity. Great Food. Great service. Inspired by the everyday family cooking that we grew up with.” The fish takes me right back to Aunt Sarah’s Fish Fry Salon, where you could taste love and Ultra Sheen in each bite.
