At Preston Elementary School on Maryland's Eastern Shore, one lunch option comes with an environmental mission. Students in Caroline County are being served a catfish cake, nicknamed the "catty patty," made from blue catfish, an invasive species that has spread through the Chesapeake Bay.
Reviews from the cafeteria are mostly positive. Second-grader Ben Rochon called it "yummy," while fifth-grader Raelynn Truitt said it "kind of tastes like crabs, but in a fish way." Not every child is sold, since pizza day is stiff competition, but Beth Brewster, who oversees food services for Caroline County Public Schools, says more students have been trying the dish since it began appearing on the menu a couple of times a month.
The effort began about eight years ago, when state officials asked Brewster to find a use for the fish. Karen Fedor, administrator of the Farm and Food Programs at the Maryland Department of Agriculture, described her as an "out-of-the-box thinker." Brewster's team developed a recipe that appeals to kids and meets federal dietary requirements. Because it has USDA approval, the cakes can be served anywhere in the country. The pandemic slowed progress at first, but a partnership model from Virginia and a program called Bay2Tray helped connect the fish with schools. Districts in both Maryland and Virginia now serve it.
Blue catfish are native to the Midwest and were introduced to Virginia rivers in the 1970s for recreational fishing. Branson Williams, manager of the Invasive Fishes Program at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, said the expectation was that the brackish bay would keep them confined to freshwater stretches. Instead, they proved able to handle some salinity, and record rainfall in 2018 gave them fresh water to move into new habitats. They now live in every tidal tributary in Maryland and in the bay itself.
In some areas, blue catfish make up about 70% of fish biomass, according to Williams. They reproduce quickly and can grow beyond 100 pounds, and they eat forage fish such as menhaden along with young crabs and fish. Virginia officials have warned that the species threatens the seafood industry that depends on traditional catches such as flounder. A decline in blue crabs would be a major economic and cultural blow to Maryland, so the state is turning to the fish's only real predator: people. Other states are taking similar approaches, including Kentucky and Illinois with Asian carp, and Maine and Washington with invasive green crabs.
On the lower Potomac River, fourth-generation waterman Rocky Rice now fishes mainly for blue catfish. He hauled in about a thousand pounds on a recent trip, using hoop pots, and aims to average 1,200 to 1,500 pounds on the three days a week he goes out. He started 14 years ago to fill time between crabbing seasons, and it has become his primary job. Because the fish is invasive, there is no season or size limit. "Please keep them all," Williams said. Rice describes the meat as a "snow white, mild fillet" and prefers it deep-fried.
A bottleneck exists in processing. Catfish is the only U.S. fish required to have a USDA inspection, a rule meant to shield the domestic market from cheap imports. Having an inspector on site costs money and time, so only four Maryland processors can handle blue catfish, even with grants and other help. Still, the fish is reaching grocery stores, restaurants, schools and food banks. Jenn Lovewell, chief nutrition officer for Real Good Fish, which runs Bay2Tray, said she had recently shipped a pallet to a university in Texas.
Lovewell and Brewster both say millions of pounds must be harvested just to hold the line. "It'll never be eradicated," Brewster said, urging people to look for the fish in markets and restaurants. Or, as Lovewell put it, "Eat the problem and save the bay."
