Am I the only one who thinks catfish are awful to eat?

And a lobster isn’t “feeding on the rotten offal” of the ocean floor?

It’s understandable how you feel. Catfish is popular in the southern US, but it just doesn’t appeal to me either, despite living here. The taste is bland and the texture is semi-mushy. A relative raises them, and they lurk around in old tires in the pond bottom and live on dog food. It personally holds no taste appeal, but there are many friends who will drive into Mississippi to dine on it in a roadside shack. Go figure.

How about vegetables? Those things grow best in soil filled with manure.

@uberbatman From this link..it would appear they don’t feed on rotting food, but on food that is alive when they eat it.
”Lobsters are omnivores and typically eat live prey such as fish, molluscs, other crustaceans, worms, and some plant life.” (emphasis mine)

Lobsters are basically undersea bugs who can grow so large because they can support a thicker exoskeleton than land-based bugs, who have to deal with the greater effects of gravity on land vs. under water.

So think of lobsters (and crabs) as big, underwater bugs. Big, tasty underwater bugs.

Having owned lobsters, worked in aquariums, and scuba dove a lot I can tell you that lobsters eat a lot of detritus as well. Crabs and shrimp are “worse”. Crabs will literally eat anything. Are they foul to eat as well?

I just don’t understand the whole it’s a bottom feeder so it’s dirty logic. If you consider biomagnification the whole argument becomes moot. If the small organisms that eat other organisms shit are dirty, what about the animals that eat them? It’s all connected.

So. I will never eat again. Ditch.

I’m not wild about lake fish in general, but when I do eat it I usually wind up enjoying it more than I expected—and that includes, kittyfish, which is very popular here.

Ah, but shellfish… can’t get enough of it.

Our grownup likes and dislikes around food have a lot to do with what we grew up on. My mother rarely served fish, and I can’t recall going to seafood restaurants, although I must have because I inherited my dad’s passion for lobster, oysters and the like. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to eat shellfish because he was reared kosher, so there you go—- what you didn’t eat as a kid can turn out to be what you love as an adult.

Anybody wanna join me for broiled lobster with lots of melted butter and warm sourdough bread on the side?

^^^Oh, yeah, please!

Cat fish can taste muddy if they are from middy rivers but other rivers with less silt, can be quite delicious. I had the privilege of eating barbecued catfish fresh from a rock bottomed river in Brazil and it was wonderful. It was also about 20 inches long and fed a group of 20.

I have eaten catfish mainly to be polite. Where my in-laws live, Catfish is food. Anything battered and deep fried can taste good.

I have caught channel catfish as much as four feet long and thicker than my upper thigh and weighing 50 to 70 pounds. They sure don’t look like food to me!

I went to a restaurant that specialised in catfish in Lucedale, Mississippi once. I went with my in laws. The catfish was fried in breadcrumbs and eaten with hush puppies and a cheese dip. I like fish but I didn’t like the catfish at all. They were bred in a large pond out the back.

Now I’m hungry for a fish fry. yum

I don’t eat it because I don’t like the taste. They are nasty, but I’ll eat chicken livers so I can’t claim consistency on that.

I’m from Kansas. Every nice weekend my husband and I are at the lake, camping. He fishes (for cat fish) and I read and take pictures and try to create high class, fancy fire pits out of the stones.
When we’d been together for about 8 years he took me to Roaring River, in Missouri. It’s a trout farm place (which is kind of cheating IMO. We eventually moved to the actual river, which was more fun for me.) I’m up for trout!
So, Rick steps up and starts ‘splaining to me how to cast and stuff. I just looked at him, snatched my pole away, tied on the lure and started casting.
He says, “You don’t know how to fish!”
I said, “Yeah. I do. Been fishing since I was 8. I’ve caught bass in Missouri, trout in Colorado and salmon in Oregon. My sister caught a sword fish in Washington State. I’ve also caught jellyfish in Florida (which doesn’t actually count as fishing, tho. :) But I really did.)”
That Kansas country boy just stared at me with his mouth open for a second. In 8 years he’d never seen me fish before!

I didn’t catch anything, but he caught his limit. We grilled them the next day. Little lemon, salt, pepper, wrapped in foil with small holes poked in it to catch the wood smoke. Oh man, that was so GOOD!

Hate eating them, love catching them…lol

I don’t hate them because they are bottom feeders, I just think they’re nasty lol. To each his own

I think they are too. They have this taste that….it’s just icky. Like @Sunny2 said, they taste “muddy.”

No. I too detest catfish. Love salmon however.

You have to know how to clean them right. The skin side of the filet needs trimmed off because it has a bad taste. Once you’ve cleaned this off , the fish is comparable to Pollock in taste. You just have to have the knowhow to clean them right is all. Plus catfish are also predator fish too.