Here’s a good-looking recipe for catfish prepared like this. Note the mix of flour and cornmeal. I’ve not used garlic powder before, but I can imagine that being tasty.
Daniel
I use cornmeal with just a little bit of flour to help it bind (Like a tablespoon or two flour to a cup of cornmeal). They key is that the coating should be very light and crispy; not a batter.
Pan frying in a cast iron skillet is really good; deep frying is quicker and more conducive to large quantities. I’ll eat either one just as gladly.
I usually wait to spice it until right after frying, that way the spices aren’t burnt and stick to the fish better.
And I make my own tartar sauce since the store bought stuff just ain’t right.
Re: grits – the thing with grits in restaurants is that it’s normally served plain. It’s up to the customer to add butter, salt, etc. to taste. If someone were to just dive into a bowl of plain grits … yeah, I can see how that would be underwhelming.
That’s weird… at the CVS I go to they have an entire candy aisle and I’m pretty sure they have Ghirardelli and I know for certain they have Cadbury’s chocolate bars, including fruit and nut.
US Cadbury’s suck. They’re common in candy aisles, but they’re sucky.
Daniel
I love the way that Taco Bell seems to be such a draw to visitors from other nations. I’m at work right now, within 3 miles of not one but three Taco Bells, and I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather not go. Uck.
I have to agree with comments about too much salty/greasy food here. I loved it when I was a teenager, but now I notice it too much, as well as it’s effects on my body. My girlfriend and I got some fried fish and hush puppies the other night, and while she seemed to like it all I could taste was salt and vegetable oil.
You probably didn’t have any green tomato pickle to cut the grease. That was your problem.
Well, you’re certainly right about that.
Well, the whole Peanut Butter and Maple Syrup sandwiches are something my Dad used to make for me. He was originally from West Virginia but we lived in Ohio, so I’m not sure of its regionalism. I’d heard of other people eating them and thought they weren’t too uncommon. But, then again, he also made us Rootbeer pancakes and sometimes Faygo Rock and Rye pancakes, too. He even made some green pancakes for St. Patrick’s day one year, so take it all with a grain of salt. God, I love him and miss him, may he rest in Peace… sigh. He taught me how to cook my first few things, mostly Breakfast stuff…how to fry an egg, how to make pancakes, oatmeal, etc. His eclectic style and humor in cooking was a real impression and has stayed with me and influenced my culinary sense and (mis)adventure. I’m very lucky to have had a Dad with that ingenuity, love, humor, and patience. Love ya Dad, even though I wasn’t a huge fan of the Maple Syrup and PB sandwiches.
Cadbury’s: Meh…me too, a little better than Hershey’s, but not that great. Between Hershey’s and Cadbury’s it’s a choice between waxy chocolate or over-sugared chocolate, respectively.
Catfish: My neighbor, when I was a kid used seasoned Flour and Cornmeal, egg and milk, and fried it in a cast iron skillet with a mix of bacon drippings and crisco from an old coffee can by the stove. That was good. My brother used to smoke Catfish in a smoker made of two old 50 Gal. drums welded together. That was better.
That was a lovely paean to your Dad, and he sounds like a wonderful man, but face it, he was a freak in the kitchen :).
A little over a decade ago, I spent a few weeks in England. Cadbury’s there is totally different: it’s probably the best milk chocolate I’ve ever had. If you ever make it to England, give it a try!
Daniel
I haven’t tried catfish, but basa is the blandest, softest textured fish in the world. A local pub has ruined their fish and chips by using basa for the fish part - it just doesn’t stand up to battering and deep-frying. The baby food of fish, if you like. 
Typical processed ham is nasty stuff compared to a proper baked ham. I can certainly understand where she was coming from if she was used to farm-style ham.
In the US Cadbury is made by Hershey, which would explain why it sucks.
At any big drugstore (like CVS) in NJ I can find Ghirardelli and Dove, which is really good.
I was going to mention the corndog as a uniquely American food, but I’ve just discovered that, according to Wiki, people eat the monstrosity everywhere. I find it almost impossible to believe it’s not an American thing.
There would be fights to the death that would make WWI look like a playground argument over which regional variety of barbecue to export. Eastern NC vinegar variety? The red sauce version of Texas (is that right?)? Any of the several thousand million even more localized styles?
Anyway, you guys are hogging all the good breakfasts. Send those down here and we’ll talk. Also we need widespread accesibility of Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut bars.
SpazCat, who has a huge bag of grits in her fridge right now and is contemplating making cheese grits over the weekend and eating them all herself ha ha ha
Having had a couple of glasses of Tempranillo tonight, I don’t have the patience to go through all the thread, so I’ll jst throw in some random oservations:
The bad:
- American “coffee”. Yes, the "-marks are intentional. Brown, hot liquid with a slight coffee taste. And why do people drink it with the main course?
- Speaking of that - mixed drink as the beverage of choice when having a nice dinner? Beer, wine or water.
- Pop. I like it, and it goes with some stuff, but drinking Coke and having fresh grilled tuna… Ewww.
- American beer of major brands.
- Wonderbread
- PB&J
The strange:
- Not food per se, but that strange custom of moving the fork around.
- Waiters bringing the food on a tray with half domes covering it. This is “fancy”?
- The infinite number of choices to make when ordering.
- Those glasses that aren’t made by glass and are really leight weight.
The good:
- Sammiches. With lots of meat, cheese or whatever. Not just bread and an ounce of ham. Soup and a sandwhich is actually a meal, not a snack.
- Always ice water on the table, before one even orders.
- Clam chowder.
- Rocky Road (readily available here, but not when I first visited the U.S.)
- Dunkin’ Donuts
The divine:
- Chicago deep dish pizza.
Charly Tan, the coffee with the main course thing seems to be regional/generational. When we lived in Western Pennsylvania it was usual to have coffee cups on the table at all meals, and it seemed to me that mostly older people drank it with lunch or dinner. (We were poor academics and often went to the “early-bird” specials aimed at seniors.)
Here in California you would need to make a special request and I can’t remember the last time I saw someone drinking coffee during any meal that wasn’t breakfast or brunch.
This is actually quite good, although it’s like Vegemite; more than a thin spread of each and it’s just too gooey and nasty. Otherwise, the tastes combine well. It’s best if you have some lettuce to add a little body.
I’ve got to wonder what our over-the-seas friends would think of the ultimate PB sandwich concoction: Peanut Butter and Marshmallow Fluff (aka, the “Fluffernutter”). 
I have a sneaking suspicion it was created by stay-at-home moms to gum up the children’s mouths so much they’d be forced to be quiet.
We had a friend from Canada (Calgary) visit us a couple of years ago. I was surprised to find she had never heard of Fluff and was fascinated by it (my son likes it, I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot spoon). She took some home for her nephews when she left, and we sent her more after that.
Oh, and count me as another lifelong American who has never heard of or seen half the things in this thread. PB and maple syrup? Pickled pigs feet? Gross!
Oh, and an Irish friend brought us some genuine Cadbury Flakes from her last trip home. They earn an unequivocal “meh” from me, but then I am not into sweets or candy in general.