Leon County Cooks: Junior Jarvis

A batch of fresh fried “buttermilk pancake catfish”. If you have ever stood over a hot pot of boiling grease under a shade tree in the middle of July, frying up catfish and fries, then you are probably doing it for a crowd. Maybe your family, or maybe friends, or maybe to help raise money for someone who is in trouble. It is then that you realize that you are doing much more than just cooking. You are cooking from the heart!

This week’s cook is Ju- nior Jarvis (real name Robert but he doesn’t like it) from Marquez. Junior was one of the cooks at the benefit for Karen Jones at the Marquez Volunteer Fire Station on Saturday.

Junior doesn’t fry fish the traditional southern way, with corn meal, but uses pancake mix. In fact he specifies buttermilk pancake mix.

Since I consider myself something of a southern cooking expert, the thought of catfish without cornmeal simply did not appeal to my Leon County taste buds. But you know what? It was delicious. Where cornmeal is crisp the pancake mix is soft and possibly more moist. Jarvis says he adds garlic and salt to the buttermilk pancake mix and fries the fish exactly as if using cornmeal.

....................................................Juni or Jarvis is noted around the Marquez area for his “buttermilk pancake catfish”. Sherry’s Shots Pinto beans are also a specialty of Jarvis. To these he adds sausage, Tony Chachere’s Seasoning and salt.