For decades, students at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science have entered the hallowed halls of Hogarth Dining Hall on Friday afternoons met with the familiar scent of fryer grease. While cafeteria food can be notoriously erratic in quality, Hogarth Dining Hall has continually relied on Catfish Friday to keep its patrons satisfied. 

The beginning of Catfish Friday is murky. Long-time Hogarth employees said catfish was served every Friday when they began working there. The best estimation I found was catfish began being served every Friday at least 15-20 years ago. However long it has been served, it is no surprise a public university in Mississippi would serve catfish. 

The catfish is as important in the foodways and culture of Mississippi as anything else. The Magnolia State was where the mass production of farm-raised catfish took off, and, to this day, Mississippi produces more farm-raised catfish than any other state.  

“There are a lot of things Mississippi wants out of the catfish. It’s symbolic as well as sustenance and [commercial] too,” said John T. Edge, a Southern food writer and the host of the show “True South” on the SEC Network. “I’d make a bet there are at least 100 people within an hour’s drive who have catfish tattooed somewhere on their back.”

The popularity of catfish is clear statewide, but does its appeal carry over to MSMS and MUW students who eat it at Hogarth? 

Rachel Pitman, executive chef and catering director for Sodexo and MUW Dining, said it does.  

“Catfish Friday is a popular day for lunch in the dining hall. We serve approximately 325 meals on Fridays for fried catfish lunch,” Pitman said.  

Given its popularity and tradition within Hogarth Dining Hall, as well as the fish’s history in the state, one would probably presume the catfish is a product of Mississippi. However, the answer to this is not so straightforward. U.S. catfish farmers have been fighting in so-called Catfish Wars against Asian competitors who can sell their fish for far cheaper. This means catfish sold in the U.S. are often Chinese or Vietnamese in origin. Often, sellers mislead consumers into believing they are eating U.S. farm-raised catfish. 

Karen Senaga, professor of history at Pierce College in Washington who has written extensively about Mississippi’s farm-raised catfish industry in both historical and modern terms, emphasized the threat of foreign imports to farmers in the state. 

“Essentially, the [American catfish] industry did too much of a good job making their fish indistinguishable and [allowing] catfish from Asia to come onto the market and easily replace it,” Senaga said. “When these Asian fish became widely available, restaurants and producers pass it off as American catfish.” 

Sodexo has two catfish products from the same supplier: Icy Bay. These two products, with the same descriptions on the Sodexo Seafood website, come in identical sizes, identical weights and even have the same nutritional information and same shelf life. The only difference between these two fish: one is U.S. farm-raised catfish, and the other is raised in China.  

This semester, when asked where Hogarth’s catfish originates, its employees offered varied responses. One employee was kind enough to check the box the catfish filets came in. The box of catfish he got was of Chinese origin.  

The next week on Catfish Friday, I talked to Jayime Mathis, who took over as operations manager at Hogarth in January and emphasized their catfish was in fact local in origin. 

“We use farm-raised Mississippi catfish. We have a standing order, and we get three trucks a week. We order our fish separately for Catfish Friday,” Mathis said. 

Pitman added context to the confusing landscape of food service providers: “Because Sodexo is a global company with nationwide food service operations, each operation sources their products from different suppliers. Here at MUW Dining, our main supplier is Sysco. We purchase 3- to 5-ounce catfish filets through their Memphis supply facility.” 

I was surprised to learn the dining hall broke away from Sodexo when sourcing catfish. Mathis said the majority of the food MUW and MSMS students eat at Hogarth is locally sourced. 

“The majority of our stuff [comes from Mississippi]. The fruit you guys eat is Mississippi [grown]. The basis of everything that comes through that door is from Mississippi,” Mathis said. 

When the catfish comes into the kitchen, it is a boneless, skinless filet. The process of breading and seasoning the fish happens on Thursday night. Doing the preparation in-house can cause last-minute supply problems. 

Mathis said Hogarth recently experienced one of the hiccups during the Friday lunch rush.  

“We were missing two boxes, so the truck literally ran in the middle of service. They had to get it off the truck and get it over here. We had extra students, so we had to make sure we had enough. It came straight off the truck, straight to the line so that [we] could get it out,” Mathis said. 

Regardless of the origin of the fish, Catfish Friday is somewhat polarizing amongst MSMS students. Some say they see it as a beloved staple, while others view it as monotonous and gross. 

Junior Shaw Prewitt said he is tired of Catfish Friday and views it as a gimmick. 

“Personally, [Catfish Friday] is my least favorite day of the week. Catfish is a bland fish, but it’s an easy way to get a lot of food. It sounds good because it has a catchy name and it’s a Mississippi food. Whenever people eat it [in Hogarth], they feel like they’re eating rural cuisine,” Prewitt said. 

Contrary to Prewitt, junior Margaret Parker embraces Catfish Friday’s allusion to Mississippi foodways. 

“Catfish Friday reminds me so much of Southern culture. It also adds a bit of variety to what we are eating,” Parker said. 

Regardless of varied student opinion and discontinuity in origin, it was clear those who prepared the food were proud of what they served. Hogarth staff still painstakingly bread, season and fry the fish every week. A true staple of the MSMS experience, catfish will continue to be lovingly served and consumed by students for Fridays to come.