The origins of this recipe are said to have been attributed to Edward Abbey, the park ranger nature writer, who was like the Thoreau of the Wilderness Movement. On one of his more challenging trips, while floating Utah’s Green River, after five days and out of food rations, he created this dish from their reserve of bacon fat, a bag of cornmeal and catfish caught from the river. He wrote about this in his classic book Desert Solitaire.
The spicy, crunchy coleslaw is a nice foil to the smoky, bacon rich taste of the catfish—which should always be served with a great Tartar sauce.