Frog Legs
Raisin' Up Catfish: Thirty-two
Eating a frog’s hind hoppers may take some getting used to, but only as an idea. Otherwise, unless someone had actually gone out of their way to tell you you were dining on the locomotion quarters of a pond-fed amphibian, you’d probably never have guessed. Like a dozen other exotic seeming, deep-fried meats, Rana catesbeiana (old school, scientific nomenclature as I learned it), aka, bullfrog, tastes surprisingly like fried chicken.
Explicit orders had been laid down early in the summer that all ‘eatin-size’ bullfrogs should be shot on sight and their legs retrieved whenever possible. Bone was convinced they ate hundreds of young catfish in our fingerling ponds, daily, and felt that a standing death sentence would assure at least some sort of return on the farm’s investment.
Heh, heh, heh.
Truth was, he loved eating the damned things, loved them, I suspect, even more than catfish. The man simply couldn’t get enough frog legs to fill up that hopper hunger. Killing these ravenous, amphibious predators and then devouring their legs was a win-win situation in Bone’s mind. Undoubtedly this interpretation would have registered a little different, were you the frog.
I suppose I took Bone’s anti-frog campaign rather more seriously than my work partners, shooting first and wrestling with the small moral implications of killing them, later, all the while telling myself in tones of mock humility that it was somehow, actually my responsibility, because, well we couldn’t just allow them croakers to get out of control now, could we? And furthermore, because I was a better shot.
Actually, any excuse to stop work and fire a few rounds through the .22, seemed like an excellent excuse to a fifteen year old boy, if you get my meaning. Call it predator control. Yes, exactly; predator control. Sounds so much more official than just, ‘shootin’ some damn frogs.’ Almost kinda noble, even.
Over the summer I killed scores of the leggy pond creatures, earning a sureshot reputation for myself among men who really couldn’t have cared less, and yes, several, subsequent dinners for my smiling boss.
There was a downside to this murderous game, however, and that was retrieving the damn things once I'd shot ‘em. Ughhh! It meant getting crotch-wet, yet again, which I did often enough in a day, already. Blue jeans or even cotton work trousers and jockey shorts, and canvas shoes take forever to dry, even on a hot day, leaving their wearer (in this case, me), both soggy and chafing until they do.
After maybe the hundredth frog, plinked and cleaned I had begun to appreciate Zak and Mose’s more lethargic policy in this predator control matter, began to see them as both sly and more wise than myself. Their feigned, froggy blindness was actually self-protection. Don’t have to shoot what you don’t see. Don’t have to get soggy retrieving what ain’t dead.
I too had begun to grow weary of paying for a thing I would never, personally enjoy with the endless feel of clammy pants and soggy feet but I dutifully continued shooting them at every opportunity for the chance to impress Bone and earn a little notice. I just might not have retrieved the ones in deep water quite as dutifully as I had at first.
Now, as a former expert on the subject, I can tell anyone interested that if you’re going to hunt bullfrogs for a bit of farm to table dining it is quite important to mind the size of the hole one blows in said bullfrog, and just where, for these factors will absolutely determine to a very great degree whether that bulge-eyed little delicacy will sink to the muddy bottom like a red clay brick or continue floating, rocking there peacefully, back and forth in the wake of its own demise.
I learned soon enough to aim for the head, having ascertained the hard way, by trial and error that only well shot frogs remained floating, more or less where they died. Little science or skill were required to retrieve them after that since dead doesn’t get any deader, and well, because headless bullfrogs just don’t seem to remember how to swim away.
Cleaning frogs for eating, then is a pretty much a snap, which I mean quite literally. One simply takes what remains of their bodies in one hand, a sharp knife in the other, then slits through the smooth, green skin on their backs and the white of their bellies, circling the creature’s waist just above her hind legs. A quick twist and snap to sever the spine then, and it’s easy to pull those narrow, muscled legs, still joined in a "V", from their skin sheaths.
Bone kept an enameled, tin pail of water in the hatchery fridge for frog legs, and every few days he took its accumulated bounty home for dinner.
One sweltering morning when I brought three, fat new pairs of pink legs back to the hatchery from my water testing rounds, Bone smiled at me and asked if I’d ever tasted frog hoppers.
Obviously, I’d have hedged my answer to Vernon, searching for his angle, but trusted Bone enough to tell the straight up truth. I’d been catching frogs since early childhood, hundreds of them, thousands maybe over the past decade, but I’d never once licked one or bit one, and had never considered trying.
“Well, hells bells!” The clouds opened up then and a choir of angels began to sing. Bone decided in that unvarnished moment that I really must experience one of these culinary feasts for myself, these same tasty repasts my labors had been affording him and Vernon with much greater frequency since I’d started work. So the next day instead of lunching at Miss Mae's store with the others, I was invited home as the guest of honor, riding ‘bitch,’ between Bone and Vernon in the three-quarter ton to finally discover why they considered frog legs to be one of the South’s finest delicacies.
While Vernon drove, Bone launched into a poetic soliloquy that soon had my mouth watering in anticipation and pink-faced Vernon nodding in eager affirmation.
“Gaylord, son,” he leaned into me, “Miss Martha ought’a be fryin’ up a batch of yo’ frog legs at this very moment.” he speculated. “Two parts flour and a one ‘a white cone meal, toss in a little salt, a lot a pepper and several dashes of Tabasco. Dip ‘em in milk n’ egg, an then dredge ‘em in that mix. Drop ‘em in, just two or three at a time into a skillet full of shortnin’, shimmery hot (not lard mind you cuz its too strong), then fry them little suckers up till they just be gittin’ a light, golden brown.
“Jesus H. Christ on a cracker, son!” he wailed “You ain’t nevah’ eht anythin’ so good as that! Near good as pussy, I’d say.”
I chuckled along with him.
It was his own recipe, I think. At least Vernon had implied as much while he was yammering on and on, on the road to work that morning. I couldn’t quite picture Bone donning an apron or obtaining permission to experiment around in Miss Martha’s seemingly, very territorial kitchen but I was struck by the fact that he had the whole process and recipe committed to memory, and even more impressed than before with the broad spread of skills and interests that made up the man.
As Vernon pulled into the circular driveway in front of Bone’s tree shaded house, Bone turned to me, dead serious, cleared his throat, paused, and said very solemnly, “Son, you ‘bout to eat like a fuckin’ king!” With that his whole body broke into a giant grin and he let himself out of the truck.
I couldn’t imagine being able to agree with his sentiments. “Frog legs? Food for kings? I don’t think so,” I thought, trying to make sure my eyes didn’t give me away.
Moments later we were all washed up and seated at his kitchen table. I was smiling politely with my hands in my lap, assessing the platter of crispy brown leg-pairs steaming just in front of me. The smell was indeed heavenly. I tried not to picture them in their previous incarnations, either as ghostly white limbs with black veins floating in their special pail at the back of the fridge, or as the harrumphing pond creatures I had taken aim at prior to plunking them into their next life with a bullet.
Frog legs looked neither ghostly nor morbid when you first cleaned them, they looked healthy, pink flesh with veins of crimson red. It was that two or three days in a pail of graying water that changed them, least-wise for me. Strange how a little breading and some hot grease could transport them so far back toward a perception of beauty.
Determined not to come off as some kind of wimp or snob at my boss’ generous table, I bravely forked a pair of legs off the platter and began chewing their golden flesh with feigned relish. But before finishing even that first bite, my feigned pleasure had become real. The damned things were delicious!
I suppose I ate about a half a dozen pairs over the course of lunch, in addition to a nicely fried crappie, several hush puppies, a generous serving of collards, some crowder peas and two slices of yellow cornbread, slathered in butter. Finally, as if that wasn’t already enough, I also conceded to a fat slice of Miss Martha’s blue-ribbon pecan pie, which she basically forced on me, thank God. Few things on Earth can rival a proper, southern, pecan pie and Miss Martha’s, well I swear, that was the best I’d ever tasted.
Lunch that day with my boss and his family, …being treated to a meal as their guest; the whole experience was a rare and wonderful treat for a kid like me, beating hell out of another bologna sandwich with too much mustard and a pack of stale Fig Newtons in the shade.
Miss Martha’s cooking was absolutely revelatory, but in hindsight I’ve come to see that as appetizing as the food was, showing off my table manners and breeding, and being invited into the casual conversation of a family that loved one another, and, …and treated as a friend, these were the real treasure.
My continuing attempts to enlarge Bone’s views of me and prove further that I was for real, those alone would have made that workday meal fabulous. I’d have given almost anything to prove to him and the others that I was one of the good guys, that I was for real.
Who could’ve imagined it …a platter of tasty frog legs and a seat at a kitchen table; the hospitality of a farmer’s wife, a shared meal, an unexpected pry bar to keep opening that reluctant door?
© David E. Perry. All rights reserved.
When I was fifteen I lived in a boarding house in Mississippi during the summer and worked, seventy and more hours each week …on a catfish farm where I earned just a dollar an hour. The work was honest, if the circumstances surrounding it were not. My mother was dating the fish farm’s married owner. His wife wrote and signed my paychecks every week. He knew I knew. I knew he knew. I was both liability and oddity, a hard worker trying like hell to be worthy of my paycheck rather than the nuisance brat of some fancy piece of tail.
It was complicated.
Though several chapters of Raisin’ Up Catfish are only available to paying subscribers, this one and nearly twenty other previously published stories from this unfolding collection are not behind the paywall and are available to everyone. Please feel free to click on Raisin’ Up Catfish in the menu bar at the top of my Substack home page to read others.
I grew up in the ‘50’s in California eating frog legs that my father and his family gigged. I ate a lot of different animals that my hunted to supplement our food. We were considered poor although I never knew or felt that at the time.
Now I have been eating less and less meat since my compassion for all living beings has evolved and I plan one day soon to completely stop.
My husband is not on board with this, but he may have to or learn to cook for himself. 😊
Thanks for this article. It did bring back great memories of my childhood and family memories of helping each other.
You write really well. I am learning a lot about the development of masculinity in the south. I am somewhat out of my depth as the western girl, Massachusetts transplant, squeamish and non-violent person I have been, but I like to open new worlds.