I grew up in America's rural heartland calling catfish and crappie 'seafood', but in truth, it would be far more accurate to call it riverfood or lakefood. Real seafood was reserved for restaurant dining and with cautions from in-the-know types to not order on certain days of the week based on restaurant order delivery norms.When I moved to the Raleigh area 3 years ago, one of the bragging points about this region is that we are 2.5 hours from the mountains and 2.5 hours from the coast. But knowing that still did nothing to prepare me for this sign at my local farmer's market:Most Saturdays, Carolina Catch Seafood has a stand at the Apex Farmers Market, selling fresh fish and shellfish, caught the day before and packed on ice, but never frozen. It's like winning the Local Food Lottery!The NC Catch organization has this handy chart of seasonal availability of NC seafood which will be used like the seasonal produce charts to help me meal plan around the season's best. I love shopping the farmer's markets to supplement what I grow and support local, sustainable food producers. Getting to support local fishermen (and women) is a new concept for me, but one that I (sorry, mandatory bad pun) will take to like fish to water!
Carolina Catch Sign