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34 POUND BACON, CHOPPED FINE 2-3 LARGE ONIONS, CHOPPED 1/4 POUND BUTTER 1/2 BOTTLE CATSUP I TABLESPOON WORCESTERSHIRE Put a layer of cleaned flat fish into a deep pot and cover with chopped onions browned in bacon, then another layer of fish and one of browned onions and bacon until all are used. Dot with butter, pour on the catsup and Worcestershire and just cover with water. Cook 1/2 hour or until fish are tender and serve on slabs of pine bark with rice and corn bread.
The story goes that when some Carolina fisherman were lost in the woods and had no food except the fish they'd caught they made a stew of them flavored with ramps or wild onion and whittled out plates from pine bark. In any case, fishing parties down South go in for Pine Bark Stews with a variety of ingredients that couldn't possibly have been in the original; and half of the fun is in eating it out of the bark shell, of course.
A camp stew built in layers, closer to a Southern fish muddle than to a chowder. The ingredient list gives no quantity of fish, so scale from the aromatics: this amount of bacon, onion and catsup will season roughly 3 to 4 pounds of dressed panfish, serving six.
- Which fish"Flat fish" here most likely means the freshwater panfish a fishing party would have on hand — bream, crappie, sunfish, small catfish — split and cleaned, rather than flounder or sole, though the recipe does not say. Firm-fleshed fillets hold up better than delicate ones in a layered pot.
- The bacon quantityThe bacon figure has lost its fraction in the ingredient line; "34" is almost certainly three-quarters of a pound. Chopped fine, that yields enough rendered fat to brown this quantity of onions properly.
- Brown the onions in the fat, not the baconRender the chopped bacon first, then cook the onions in the drippings until genuinely browned and sweet. This is where the stew gets its depth; pale onions leave it tasting of catsup and little else.
- CatsupHalf a bottle of the catsup of the day would have been somewhere in the region of 6 to 7 fluid ounces; about 3/4 cup is a reasonable modern equivalent. Tomato catsup of the period was generally thinner and sharper than modern squeeze-bottle ketchup, so a splash of cider vinegar may help restore the tang.
- Water level and heat"Just cover with water" is literal — this is a stew, not a boil. Keep it at a bare simmer and resist stirring, or the layers collapse into hash.
- Half an hour is for whole panfishSmall bone-in fish need the full 30 minutes for the flesh to loosen from the frame. Skinless fillets will be done in 10 to 12 minutes and turn to threads if held longer.
- RampsThe wild onion of the origin story is Allium tricoccum, in season only a few weeks in spring and now heavily over-foraged in parts of Appalachia. Buy from a cultivated source or substitute a mix of scallion and a little garlic.
- The pine barkServing on bark is theatre, not flavor — the bark is a plate, and nothing pine goes into the pot. If you want to do it, use clean outer bark slabs from freshly split wood, and put the rice and cornbread on them rather than pooling liquid.