No matter where you are during Lent, a fried filet of cod with all the fixings is often just a stone’s throw away.
There are few foods that I enjoy more than a fried cod sandwich. In fact, I lunched on one Friday that I bought from a Catholic church just a few blocks from my apartment in the South Hills of Pittsburgh. I’m not Cathloic, but it was the first Friday during the 2024 Lent season that fish fries were in full swing. I couldn’t wait to take a bite. Boy, was it good. In fact, I’d call it a perfect fried fish sandwich.
A perfect fried fish sandwich starts a large cod filet that is fried in egg-based batter to create a golden, flaky crust around the white, fleshy meat. Yes, it must be cod. A friend recently told me that they use grouper where he lives in Florida. I like grouper, but it’s not what I’m looking for at a fish fry.
In a perfect fried fish sandwich, the cod filet also is much larger than its bun. That bun—I prefer an Italian-style hoagie bun myself—is generous in size and fresh. The buttery crust melts in the mouth before you’ve finished the first bite. In my world, a perfect fish sandwich also comes paired with crispy, hand-cut French fries and creamy, yet tangy, coleslaw.
First Friday Fish Fry of 2024
The lunch on Friday had all of that. My food was graciously prepared by volunteers at St. Bernard’s church in Mt. Lebanon, which is part of St. Michael the Archangel Parish. It’s a stone’s throw from my Dormont flat. I might have walked there if I hadn’t been carrying home hot food.
The menu is available on the parish’s fish fry page. You might notice that the combo that I ordered isn’t on the menu, and I have the woman taking orders to thank. She gave me a fried cod meal with a bun on the side for no extra cost. That bun helped make that sandwich perfect and it wasn’t free for them. I paid the same $14 that I would have paid without the bun. They even fixed me up with Heinz ketchup and tartar sauce in packets for my order made to go. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t a member of the church. No one even asked. That’s what I call service.
See the photo of my lunch? Now you know why I said it’s perfect.
Finding Fried Fish
Hungry yet? You’re in luck. Fish fries are readily available on Fridays during Lent. If you’re looking for a fish fry in western Pennsylvania, I suggest checking out this interactive map and list on GitHub that was made by Code for Pittsburgh. Details are incredible. The list includes churches, private businesses, and clubs, and Code for Pittsburgh has used different icons to make it easy to tell them apart. Use the filters to see if you can get a cold beer or a side of homemade perogies with your meal. Clicking on a location will provide its data in a popup window (Hint: Refresh your page to get back to the full list). You can even find fish fries with a drive-thru and a link to directions via Google.
Checking to make sure your favorite fish fry is still going strong also is a good idea if it’s been a while. There aren’t as many church-run fish fries as there used to be. Fish fries became popular because of beliefs listed in the Catholic catechism. But church membership has fallen over the years, which has led to consolidation of many parishes.
For example, I went to elementary school at St. Hilary, which was a Catholic school at a former parish in Washington, Pennsylvania. The school closed its doors about 30 years ago, but St. Hilary Church held a fish fry for more than two decades after that in the school’s basement. That church is now part of St. James Parish. The parish has two fish fries, but not at that church. Instead, the parish fish fries are held at Immaculate Conception Church and Sacred Heart Church. I.C. and Sacred Heart were separate parishes at one time, and these fish fries almost competed for customers until more recently.
Recent Fish Fry Memories
As you can imagine, the smell of fried fish filled the halls of St. Hilary during Lent. And, in elementary school, I wasn’t crazy about fried cod. I was well beyond my elementary school days before I discovered how good a fish sandwich can be.
A fish sandwich used to be my lunch almost every Friday when I was a stringer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. That sandwich came from The Springhouse, which is east of Washington on state Route 136. But many of my fish sandwiches have come from church fish fries all over the country. I’ve tried fish fries in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Arkansas, Illinois, and Missouri. The sandwich I had at a fish fry in Memphis was memorably good, but the one I had on Friday may come out on top as No. 1.
After all, this is the first time I’ve been motivated to write a story about a sandwich.
Leave a Reply