By Chuck Martin
The Cincinnati Enquirer

As the Lenten season begins today, our annual craving for fried cod, crinkle-cut fries and tartar sauce returns. For many in the Tristate, fish on Fridays will be a delicious regimen now through Good Friday (April 18). So today, we serve you fish: how to buy it, cook it, where to eat it and more.

Tristate Fish Hall of Fame

Seven years ago, we began trolling the Tristate, nibbling for the best restaurant fish sandwiches. We repeated the delicious search every two years and will name a new fish sandwich champ in 2004. Here are previous winners:

1996: Crow's Nest, Price Hill

1998: Green Derby, Newport

2000: Green Derby, Newport

2002: Greyhound Tavern, Fort Mitchell

In 1999, we came up with another fishy idea for the Lenten season: Name the best fish dinners hosted by churches and other not-for-profit organizations.

That year, we declared a tie between St. Agnes Church in Bond Hill and Mary Queen of Heaven in Erlanger. In 2001, we rated the dinner served by Hartzell United Methodist Church in Blue Ash as tops.

Nominate your top choice

This year, we'll go on fish dinner tour again. You can help by nominating your favorite church or not-for-profit fish dinner. Send postcard nominations to: Fish Dinners, The Enquirer, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202. E-mail: cmartin@enquirer.com. Deadline: March 12.

We'll sample the top-nominated dinners and announce a new champ before Easter.

Buying, storing and cooking fish

Michael Foley, president of the famed Foley Co. in Boston, which sells seafood to restaurants and retailers in the East and Midwest, offers these tips:

• Look at the store's fish case. The ice should be clean and the fish should be touching ice. (Tall stacks of fillets mean the fish may not be kept at the proper temperature.)

• Ask to see and smell the fish up close. Fresh fish should not look dry or discolored, and it should have little or no odor.

• Once you buy fish, bring it home as quickly as possible. Unwrap it and place it in a shallow glass dish. Cover with plastic wrap and store in the coldest part of the refrigerator, usually a bottom, rear corner.

• For best flavor, don't freeze fish. Home freezers bring the temperature of food down too slowly to maintain quality and flavor.

• Don't rinse fish before cooking. Rinsing washes away soluble proteins and flavor.

• Always cook fish in a preheated oven, pan or grill. Cook most fish at a medium-high to high temperature (450-degree oven).

• The general rule is to cook fish about 10 minutes per inch of thickness. Fish tastes best cooked medium-rare. To test, place a fork under fillet and lift gently. If the flesh still looks very firm and gray, it needs a few more minutes of cooking. If it falls apart easily and looks shimmering and moist, it's done.

Good for ya, too

Studies show omega-3 fatty acids in fish oils help reduce blood cholesterol and prevent dangerous blood clots. Fish high in omega-3 include tuna, cod, halibut, trout and salmon. To reduce heart disease risks, you should eat fish at least twice a week, but remember you may negate any healthy benefits by eating too much fried fish or by slathering on the tartar sauce.

The Cincinnati sandwich

We don't know who first slipped fried fish between two slices of rye bread, but Frisch's has been selling its fish sandwich since 1946. McDonald's franchisee Lou Groen created the "Filet-O-Fish" sandwich in 1963 at his North Bend golden arches, in response to the dietary demands of Catholic customers. Later, McDonald's added the sandwich to its national menu. Now, Cincinnati-style fish sandwiches are a staple at church dinners and on the menus of many restaurants year-round.

Belly up to a fish bar

Cincinnati's fish bars are the place to go if you like your fish no-nonsense. Here's where whiting, cod, perch or catfish is batter-dipped and fried, served piping-hot to go with french fries and maybe some grilled onions and peppers,

The Alabama Fish Bar in Over-the-Rhine is especially good because it does nothing but fried fish. Order up your dinner and they'll have it in and out of the fryer in a matter of minutes. You get a chance to add vinegar, ketchup or hot sauce before they slide your order into a bag for you to take home as quick as you can and eat while it's still hot. If that takes too long, eat it in your car.

Other spots for take-out fried fish: the Louisiana Fish Bar in South Fairmount or soul food places such as Rachel's Bar-B-Que and Soul in Bond Hill.

Polly Campbell

Better than Bubba's

Tristaters not only eat fish during the Lenten season, they eat shrimp - especially fried shrimp. The best, breaded and ready-to-fry shrimp we've found is Blue Harbor Inn, created by Mississippi native Harith Razaa.

The meaty shrimp is firm and sweet, with a black pepper kick in the breading. Blue Harbor Inn shrimp is available in the freezer case at Kroger in three sizes: Giant Popcorn ($5.99), Jumbo ($8.99) and Colossal ($10.99).

That special sauce

For nearly 60 years, the condiment of choice among Tristate fish lovers has been Frisch's Tartar Sauce - a perfectly delicate blend of rich mayonnaise, diced pickle and onion.

Founder David Frisch created the "special sauce" for his Big Boy hamburgers, but it soon migrated to the restaurant chain's fish sandwiches (which rank second only in sales to the Big Boy).

Almost from the beginning, Food Specialties Co. in Reading has made the sauce for Frisch's, which sells 55,000 gallons of the tangy stuff a year. And that's not counting all the tartar sauce Frisch's cooks spoon on their burgers and fish sandwiches.

It's available at Big Boy restaurants and many groceries for about $1.89 per 9 ounces.

French fries are American

"French fries" really have nothing to do with that country of berets and bistros. The term, instead, refers to a method called "frenching" - cutting the potatoes into narrow strips.

The Oxford English Dictionary, which traces the earliest mention of "french-fried potatoes" in print to 1894, suggests the term is American in origin. The British call fried potatoes "chips." People wearing berets call them pommes frites.