catfish and onion

CATFISH & ONION is an education initiative that celebrates American culture through food and music. Using a myriad of art forms including music, food, theater, and visual arts, Catfish & Onion teaches students of all ages how our country's rich history of eating and dancing together informs our present and illuminates our future.

SPRING 2025:
The trees are blooming, the air is warming, and good things are in the works for 2025 (even though it might appear otherwise). In the meantime, look for our interview with legendary musician Fats Kaplin coming soon.

CATFISH & ONION is:

CATIE BAUMER SCHWALB. Catie is a chef, food writer, photographer, and mom who splits her life between the city and the country. She received her Master of Fine Arts from the National Theater Conservatory and her Grand Diplôme in classic culinary arts from the French Culinary Institute in New York City. www.CatieSchwalb.com and @catieschwalb.

PAUL BURCH. Paul, a native of Washington D.C., is a songwriter, producer, and recording artist. His debut novel, Meridian Rising (Sept. 2025) is through New South Books, an imprint of The University of Georgia Press. For decades, Burch’s thoroughly modern yet instantly classic albums with his WPA Ballclub have attracted fans from rock to bluegrass, prompting Billboard to call him “a leader a leader in marrying country’s roots tradition with a modern sensibility" and Pop Matters to declare him “one of the best damn songwriters operating today.” paulburch.com

Coming in 2025: Cooking with Fats

A C&O Radio Sketch featuring Fats Kaplin

American music treasure Fats Kaplin (seen here at 18 in a white tie on tour with folk hero Roy Bookbinder) grew up in New York City in the 1960s. And from a young age, his twin passions have been cooking and rural Southern music. In the first of our series of music interviews coming soon, see, hear, and taste Fats' amazing story! You'll find we're all more connected than you might think.

Cooking with Fats

Fats Kaplin

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C&O Interview 1:48
C&O Interview
by Fats Kaplin
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"The greatest thing about growing up in NYC in the 1960's for me was the folk scene," Fats Kaplin told C&O. "Pete Seeger and the New Lost City Ramblers, who I saw on his show, Rainbow Quest. Some of the artists on the scene at that time were Jim Kweskin, Dave Van Ronk, John Fahey, the Incredible Stringband. Through their music, I became aware of all the 78 reissues that were available at the Lincoln Center Library. And then I became deeply immersed in rural string bands, blues and early jazz. There was a rawness and a fire about a lot of this music. To this day, it still reaches out and grabs me. As a teenager, I didn’t like anything that smacked of being commercial. I didn’t listen to Top 40 Radio. I just wanted to hear Charley Patton and Gid Tanner and The Skillet Lickers. Musically, whatever I do, no matter how far I’ve branched out, those roots are still there.

The idea of being an itinerant fiddle player greatly appealed to me as a teenager and I went on the road at 17. My first recording and extended touring was with the country blues guitarist Roy Bookbinder. I did two albums with him for Nick Pearl’s Blue Goose label in New York City.. My immediate family were all artists and, I think, were a bit baffled with my fascination with rural southern culture."