The Great Nenuph Fish-Fry

"Here you are." Toreo placed a small straw basket on the desk. The basket was lined with a thin cloth that was already soaked through with grease; the oils were dripping through the straw and onto the desk itself.
Cara grabbed a fried panfish skewer and bit into it greedily. The panfish itself was not as good as the local halibut, but the amount of fat and oil in the breading gave the skewer an ineffable and addictive quality. She wiped her chin with a kerchief; it wouldn't do to leave grease stains on her Magistrate's uniform.
"Someday I'll learn what makes these so good." Cara bit into another skewer. Ever since she learned about the Fish-Fry, she made it a point to make sure to be in Nenuph every weekend for the 'annual' event.
"You could probably fry chunks of leather in this and it would taste good. Put enough pig lard and oil into something." Marshal Toreo was eating small chunks of grilled panfish out of a small tin. The tin had the emblem of the Great Nenuph Fish-Fry stamped on, a bizarre mascot of a panfish giving a toothy, overly human grin and a 'thumbs up' with its forward fin.
The magistrate put the third skewer down. "Ugh. Don't remind me. We'll have to do another round of gymnasium tomorrow morning, sweat all of the lard out."
At that, Toreo stuffed the rest of the tin into his mouth. "Then I'll go get some more. I sweat more than you do."
"Not fair. You're twice my weight." Cara pointed a skewer at the marshal, who was already walking out the door of the station-house.
"So I get to eat twice as much. Call it a benefit of physicality. Besides, dealing with the crowds of tourists lets me earn my keep."

History

The fish of the Grand Reef of the Stagonids have always provided the staple food for the local fishers and islanders. Of particular note is the common panfish, a sluggish drifter that seems to passively feed off of whatever happens to swim into its mouth. This fish is so docile it can be caught by hand, but its flesh cannot be preserved; it putrefies quickly even in the presence of heavy brine, and disintegrates into inedible clumps when kiln-dried. Thus, panfish have to be prepared and eaten within a day of their catch, and have no commercial value of any sort. While their flesh has been described as 'bland' and 'unconvincing', panfish are highly nutritious, and their large quantities of bycatch feed all fisher villages in The Stagonids outside Nenuph.
As larger-scale power-sail fishing ramped up following The War of Unification, huge quantities of panfish began to be caught, far more than the locals could eat. From the rotting piles of panfish baking in the island heat, agents of the Unified Trade Consortium sensed an opportunity, conceiving a 'traditional pasttime' out of whole cloth to try to turn the waste into profit. The first 'annual' (actually weekly) Great Nenuph Fish-Fry was held in the first season of 671, and has been held every year (actually every week) since, a carnival of culinary curiousities featuring the 'great local delicacy' of panfish, that could only be eaten in the Stagonids and nowhere else.
Islanders and frequent visitors have played along with the charade as a large, community-wide in joke, and the fish-fry continues to the present, being a 'must-do' event on any tourist itinerary to the Stagonids.

Execution

Four blocks of Nenuph near the fisher's dock are reserved for the annual/weekly Fish-Fry. The two evenings before the Fry, the independent fishing fleets go out to scoop up panfish from the ocean by the hundreds; this is the only time where they can actually sell the panfish for a reasonable profit. The fish are prepared overnight, and the festival opens in the morning. Tourists are treated to an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of panfish - fried filets, baked into small 'nuggets', ground and mixed with corn and rice, and so forth. Ordinarily, panfish is essentially free, but these panfish based dishes are priced at a premium to bilk tourists of their Florin. From the tourist perspective, the panfish are incredibly cheap anyway, so this is rationalized as 'both parties leaving happy'.
In addition to the gastronomic attractions, panfish are described as a 'favorite' of the locals, a symbol of the Stagonids, and the mascot of the Fish-fry itself. Large quantities of Panfish knick-knacks are sold to tourists during each week's event. These souvenirs are produced by the thousands at a manufactory on the outskirts of the Etoile Capital City, which creates a bizarre result - trinkets are produced in the Capital, shipped to the Stagonids as a 'local' souvenir celebrating a 'local' custom, are sold to tourists from the Capital, and return to be placed on a shelf within a few miles of their manufacture. 
At the conclusion of each festival, tourists are quickly shuffled off to their next stop on their itineraries, while the local Nenuph hospitality board prepares the scene for the next 'annual' fish-fry next week.

Components and tools

The panfish are the star of the show at the Fish-Fry, and are caught in large quantities to be sold to tourists. Other than the fish themselves (and local cooks to prepare the fish), the most important 'ingredient' for each festival are the tourists. Tourist consortiums such as the UTC spend heavily to attract visitors and spenders to each week's Fish-Fry iteration in order to monetize as much of the panfish bycatch as they can, and a number of Nenuph locals are employed full-time as festival workers. All are given instruction to maintain the charade of the panfish as a culturally relevant icon of the Stagonids.

Observance

According to the marketing material and the story told to tourists and visitors, the Great Nenuph Fish-Fry is a hallowed annual event, borne from a traditional communal festival that's been celebrated in the Stagonids since ancient times. This is a lie, of course; the Fish-Fry is a weekly event held for the benefit of tourists. This has gone on long enough to where the locals treat the whole enterprise as a entertaining prank played on tourists, and even those tourists aware of the deception will keep mum about the whole affair.

Primary Related Location

The Stagonids