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A time to prepare: Lent and the advent of the local fish fry

Fish Fry.jpeg. Fish Fry Jim Khale
Jim Kahle
Fish fry attendees at St. John the Evangelist Church in West Chester, OH.

Community Voices Producer Jim Kahle brings the voices of the people hosting, supporting, and enjoying a local fish fry during Lent.

There are many ways to fry a fish… in the weeks before Easter you can visit some of the area Catholic churches during Lent to take part. That’s when many fast from meat and only eat fish on Fridays. Community Voices Producer Jim Kahle paid a visit to a church in West Chester near Cincinnati where cod, shrimp and more are fried in lots of hot oil.

I made my way to St John the Evangelist Church in West Chester, one of the northern suburbs of Cincinnati. They've been hosting fish fries for some 20 years or more, and they do it with volunteer chefs only.

Jim Kahle: Today's fish fry started?

John Opoku: Months ago.

Kahle: Tell me a little bit about that. How does that work?

Opoku: John, who you met, this is John's better-half, Dave. And these two guys start planning menus. They start sourcing now foodstuffs, oil, etc.... If you know anything about the economy, getting cooking oil, it's a little tough, and this year we had to buy a new fryer, one of the fryers and aged out. The fish comes from Costco and we get it also from Cisco and Rinehart's and then what we do is we freeze it and we have six fryers that are huge in the back that allows us to fry as many as, I think ten pieces of fish at a time. And we run in parallel we're frying fish, we're frying shrimp, and we're frying hush-puppies as well. And french fries, so we have a lot of stuff going on.

Kahle: Could we just walk through the kitchen to see what it looks like?

Opoku: In the kitchen or the cooking area?

Kahle: In the cooking area.

So, it has been decided that we will be going outside. A little tent area has been set up, along with a temporary area and halfway into the parking lot, there are five fryers and four big tanks of propane.

Mike Toennis: Yes, 330 degree plus oil.

Kahle: Okay. And what kind of oil do we use?

Toennis: It's just regular.

Kahle: Clear liquid fry oil.

The fish fry and volunteers are all busy doing their part to make a successful community event. The doors have been open for about an hour and the lines have been steady. This was a great time to talk to the people about why they come to this fish fry:

"Whenever they have one, we've been here. "At least once".

"[It's a] good time to get out, enjoy one another. Why stay home in the rain or snow?"

"And for all geezers like me that live alone, it's a nice social event."

Joan Siebenick: I'm Joan Siebenick and I'm the director of finance and administration for the parish.

Kahle: So anything that needs doing comes to you?

Siebenick: So not true...God. God runs the place. I have very little to do with what happens.

Kahle: They tell me they're gonna serve a thousand people today?

Siebenick: Right. Every Friday during Lent. Fries in Cincinnati are sort of like a festival, parish festival. It's just like a part of the Catholic way of life in Cincinnati.

Kahle: So I'm standing here with the man who's taken orders.

Bill Keene: No, not just selling beers so no one dies of thirst in the long line.

Kahle: Oh, so you're the first aid man?

Keene: Correct.

Kahle: And we've got we got the...

Keene: Yuengling lager, Bud Light, Black and Tan, Bud and Michelob Ultra.

Kahle: And these are intricate parts of the fish fry.

Keene: Oh, definitely!

Kahle: Can you have one without?

Keene: No! Though many don't, many people do abstain during Lent and that's fine as well.

Siebenick: During Lent, Catholic tradition tells us that Lent is a time for preparation. So, we're preparing for the death of Christ and you know, the fact that he gave himself for us. And so, as part of that preparation, we ask people to give up. We ask people to give to, we ask people too fast.

Kahle: So that, and as I understand it, you sell more than one or two beers here over the course of the evening?

Siebenick: We sure do. But that's part of Catholic tradition, too, and maybe that's not in the book.

The most surprising thing I learned is that St John's the Evangelist Church doesn't keep a penny from the sales. They divide the profits among the local Boys and Girl Scouts, the food pantries and the Knights of Columbus.