Arkansas Catfish Stew

While living in Missouri, I ate my first Arkansas catfish stew when I visited a friend one weekend at his family’s home in Carson. What I remember most was that the stew was cooked outdoors in a heavy washtub—evidently an old tradition in towns all along the Mississippi River. I also recall that the catfish were the most gigantic I’d ever seen—maybe ten pounds each—and that the stew itself was probably the best I’d ever tasted. Yes, I know that Mississippi is now the leading producer of cat