We are God’s chosen fish fry people.
And if we drink a beer with that fried perch or cod, all is right with the world on a Friday night in Wisconsin.
A juicy history of Wisconsin’s beloved fish fry tradition presented this week at the Milwaukee County Historical Society began with that pithy point and explored all things fish fry-related, including the connection between fried fish and the beer that often washes it down.
The presentation by former Milwaukee School Board member Leon Todd and his business partner, Jonathan Bales, was designed to promote their plans to build a nonprofit Urban Aquaculture Center in Milwaukee.
The center’s goal: to teach sustainable methods for raising perch, the fish fry favorite that has declined in the Great Lakes in recent decades, and therefore become pricey on fish fry menus.
Todd shared collected fish fry folklore and entertained a small group of history buffs with a PowerPoint presentation of fish fry art (such as “The Final Fish Fry,” which depicts Jesus, with a fishing pole, and disciples at the table, by artist Scott Stromberg), fish fry puns (”Thank God it’s Fry Day”), and even some fish fry music (R&B artist Louis Jordan’s 1949 hit, “Saturday Night Fish Fry”).
Many people know the Catholic roots of the Friday night fish fry - a prohibition against eating meat on Fridays during Lent, and prior to 1966, a meatless prohibition every Friday of the year. But another kind of prohibition - the prohibition of alcohol, repealed 75 years ago this spring - helped put the fish fry on the local map.
Speakeasies and brewery-owned corner taverns popularized the fish fry in Wisconsin partly out of survival, and also because of a culture unique to Wisconsin, Todd said.
“We’re one of the few states with a history of allowing children in taverns so they could eat,” he said.
During Prohibition, folks could sneak a beer with a fish fry at a speakeasy, Todd said.
Speakeasies offered free fried fish dinners to get people in the door and made money under the table on beer and whiskey.
Tavern fish fries also promoted family harmony - or at least helped keep the peace in families in which the men liked to stop at the corner tap for a few beers after work.
Instead of wives getting angry when their husbands were late for dinner, taverns offered fried fish dinners to bring families to the tavern.
Milwaukee’s well-established German beer culture met the fish fry culture in brewery-owned taverns that dotted neighborhood street corners during the heyday of local breweries.
Taverns were regular customers for fish deliveries dating back to the late 1800s. And fried fish actually helped keep some taverns in business.
Brewery-owned taverns gave away fish because it was less expensive than the beer they hoped patrons would quaff with the fish, Todd said.
By 1935, a fish fry cost 25 to 35 cents, Todd said.
In the 1950s, the fish fry merged with juke-joint culture, he said. A fish fry was quick food -dinner in 15 minutes - and people could “cut loose, dance and drink” at the same time.
Speaking of beer and fish, Todd gave a nod to Wisconsin’s four major food groups: beer, fish, venison and cheese.
There’s no known link between fish and venison and cheese, however.
By Karen Herzog
To schedule a presentation of the History of the Friday Fish Fry and the Disappearing Fish
Contact: Leon Todd - leon@urbanaquaculturecenter.com
414-444-9490