Why are Fish Camps, umm, called Fish Camps?

[Scrumtrilescent]

I'm pretty sure it's a Piedmont thing.  They've been called that for 60+ years around here.  Damn yokels.  

[Delhommey]

http://jimcofer.com/personal/2007/06/22/whats-a-fish-camp/

Looks to be a NC thing. I used Google.

We had em in SC too.

[Captain Morgan]

the term "fish camp" exists in other states as well.

 

Imo, in the olden days, you could take the fish your caught to a fish camp, (perhaps originally in large tents?)

and they would fry your fish for you for a small fee.

 

I believe these evolved into restaurants (retaining the name fish camp) that served their own food, most often

family style.  I don't think you would find them in the mountains as much because there aren't as many lakes

and big rivers in the mountains.  Obvously, they were abundant near the coast.  

 

When I was growing up in Charlotte, my father had a favorite one just outside of town...221 Fish Camp?  long time ago.

 

They seem occur in clusters...Gaston county has several still to this day..

 

http://www.visitgaston.org/great-stories-of-gaston-county/item/fish-camps-a-gaston-county-tradition.html

 

 

[Inimicus]

Because Fish Bivouac just doesn't roll off of the tongue as nicely.

[frash.exe]

Why don't you smell the air and find out

[Captain Morgan]

here's an article about one....  http://www.historysouth.org/food/fishcamp.html

 

 

you can read the whole article at the link....I think this is a pretty good idea of how they evolved...

 

Ask folks along the Catawba River in Gaston County how to spend an old-time weekend, and pretty quickly the talk will turn to fish camps.

Luther Lineberger started the first of these down-home restaurants back in 1948. According to a small, delightful exhibit at the Belmont Historical Society, “He began cooking up a mess of fish on Friday and/or Saturday nights for his friends and fellow mill workers of Cramerton Mills.”

Pretty soon he slapped up an eating house out of rough-sawn lumber, recalls Historical Society volunteer Max Robinson. “Burned off the splinters with a blowtorch,” says another volunteer, Jack Cannon.

By the 1960s half a dozen “fish camps” had folks lined out the door on weekend evenings. Catfish, carp and crappies caught right out of the Catawba gave way to shrimp, flounder and other fish from distant waters, battered and deep fried. Lineberger's burned in 1998 but many of the rest remain, clustered near the textile town of Belmont off Interstate 85 across the Catawba from Charlotte.

 

[Mother Grabber]

I grew up in Chapel Hill in the 70s and 80s, never heard of it.  Must be a State thing.

[Zod]

We had them in Florida.

 

I was always told back during 1800s people who set up spots to fish and since there was no refrigeration they would dry and salt the fish in large make shift tents. Eventually they were called fish camps and the name just carried over to any place that serves fish.

[Captain Morgan]

We had them in Florida.

 

I was always told back during 1800s people who set up spots to fish and since there was no refrigeration they would dry and salt the fish in large make shift tents. Eventually they were called fish camps and the name just carried over to any place that serves fish.

 

 

 

that sounds likely.  in those times, a big food event involved what was handy and who was around.

 

kinda like Brunswick stew.....everyone just brought what they had and threw it in the big washpot.

[iamcline]

Nothing beats Long Creek Fish Fry.  Nothing.

[Davidson Deac II]

I see. It must be a flatlander thing. Never heard of such in the mountains. 

 

Its all over the mountains, but its mostly the older people that use the term.  My parents grew up in Wilkes county and they call seafood restaurants "Fish Camps".  At least the old style everything is battered and deep fried seafood restaurants.

[Floppin]

Its all over the mountains, but its mostly the older people that use the term.  My parents grew up in Wilkes county and they call seafood restaurants "Fish Camps".  At least the old style everything is battered and deep fried seafood restaurants.

 

Wilkes county isn't the mountains. 

[Jakob]

Lived in the piedmont my whole life, never heard of a fish camp until now.

[Mother Grabber]

Nothing beats Long Creek Fish Fry.  Nothing.

 

Do they have hush puppies?