Tio Wally Eats America: White Bass, Raspberry Syrup and Apple Butter = Yum!

I’m happy to have Tio Wally (long-time Me So Hungry reader) aboard to send in his eating adventures from across America. Here he is in Galena, Missouri.

Greetings from Galena, Missouri
N 36° 47.079’ W 093° 30.350’ Elev. 885 ft.

In the last post I wrote about our white bass deep-fry bacchanal. This time we’re again messing with white bass albeit markedly less fried.

With all the fish coming through the door I wanted to do something different with it. I came up with the idea of making ceviche, the Latino dish made with raw fish cooked in citrus juice.

We started with about two pounds of white bass fillets that had been soaked in salt water overnight; the salt-water bath helps remove excess blood from the fish. We then added chopped onion, celery and cilantro; Tabasco® sauce; and the juice of two limes. The two limes didn’t seem to yield quite enough juice so we augmented it with some Realime, that juice in the plastic bottle.

Although you can eat it after it “cooks” for an hour or two, we let it sit overnight, stirring it often.

When we tasted it the next day we realized that we’d forgotten to put in the jalapeño peppers. Still, it was pretty tasty, though very limey. In retrospect we probably should’ve waited before we put in the extra lime juice. The other thing we forgot to do was cube up avocado and tomato and add them to it just before serving. But hey, No harm no foul, and no lives were lost.

The other thing we’ve been having a lot of fun with lately is homemade raspberry syrup. We found the syrup hiding in the pantry, along with a jar of delicious apple butter (great on raisin-cinnamon toast), that had been made by our late neighbor Una. Her and her sisters were famous for utilizing everything they grew in their garden, canning up a storm and, thankfully, graciously sharing the results with her neighbors.

The syrup is really spectacular because it’s not overly sweet as commercial syrups tend to be. It’s also rather thin due to the fact that, unlike commercial syrups, it contains no corn syrup. In fact it’s very much the same consistency of the brown-sugar syrup my aunt used to make when I was a kid.

The flavor is absolutely spectacular, tangy and sweet, just like fresh, vine-ripened raspberries. I think we tend to forget how amazing and how different things taste when there are no artificial flavors added.

In addition to having the syrup on the usual suspects — pancakes, waffles, French toast — we’ve also been enjoying it as a topping on ice cream. This has become a very special treat … once we finally figured out how little syrup was actually needed, so concentrated is the flavor.

While I know it would be silly to send Jason and Russ ceviche, sillier still would be to send jars of the raspberry syrup and apple butter. Sorry, guys, it’s just too damn good to share.

And so we roll.

Tio Wally pilots the 75-foot, 40-ton(max) land yacht SS Me So Hungry. He reports on road food from around the country whenever parking and InterTube connections permit.