Panfish

A panfish, also spelled pan-fish or pan fish, is an edible game fish that usually doesn't outgrow the size of a frying pan. The term is also commonly used by anglers to refer to any small catch that will fit in a pan, but is large enough to be legal. However its definition and usage varies with geographical region. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term was first recorded in 1796 in American Cookery, the first known cookbook written by an American.

The term panfish or pan-fish has been used to refer to a wide range of edible freshwater and saltwater fish species that are small enough to cook in a small pan. In American Food and Game Fishes. A Popular Account of All The Species Found In America North Of The Equator, With Keys For Ready Identification, Life Histories And Methods of Capture – Jordan and Evermann (1908) they identify all the following as panfish in some form or another: Yellow Perch, Candlefish, Balaos, Sand Launces, Rock Bass, Bullheads, Minnows, Rocky Mountain Whitefish, Sand Rollers, Crappie, Yellow Bass, White Bass, Croaker and of course most of the common small sunfishes such as bluegill and redear sunfish.

Here’s but one example:

As a pan-fish we do not know of any better among American freshwater fishes. We have experimented with the yellow perch and several other species, including both species of black bass, the bluegill, wall-eyed pike, and rock-bass, eating each for several days in succession, and found the yellow perch the sweetest and most delicious of them all. One does not tire of it so soon as of the other kinds. Several other persons who tried the same experiment reached the same conclusion. In most parts of its range it is highly esteemed, and in many places it is of very considerable commercial importance. In the Great Lakes, the Potomac River, and the small lakes in the upper Mississippi Valley large quantities are taken, which always find a ready sale.

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