Springtime is shad time on Hudson

Sylvia Carter |
A La Carter

12:41 PM EDT, May 2, 2008

Some people would rather have shad without shad roe, some prefer roe, some are partial to both, and others would just as soon have neither.

Shad is famous for roe because shad have a lot of it, as much as 300,000 eggs, half a pound or more, in two egg sacks to each female fish.

On the Delaware, Hudson and Connecticut rivers in the spring of the year, the shad still run, and shad festivals are held nearly every weekend of the season, starting sometime in April and extending into June.

The oily fish and its roe, too, are chockablock with healthful omega-3 acids; also, it is only wild, not farmed.

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The fish, part of the mackerel family, and its roe have also given generations of writers a rich and romantic topic to write about.

New Yorker magazine writer John McPhee wrote of shad in his book "The Founding Fish" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) in 2002. Another New Yorker writer, the late Joseph Mitchell, wrote of shad fishermen in the elegiac essay "The Rivermen" (contained within "Up in the Old Hotel," Random House, 1993). In Mitchell's 1960 piece, old river rats discussed the dying art of old-time shad fishing.

It has not died yet, but "the catch has declined for years now," said Christopher Letts, a river educator for the Hudson River Foundation (hudsonriver.org). This year, New York shad fishing was restricted to two days a week. In 1986, Letts, who organizes shad samplers (go to newsday.com/food to see list) on the Hudson, had to start paying for shad, once free. "There was never a time when there weren't shad festivals," said Letts. "I have a match case from the days before cigarette lighters, from the New York Board of Trade Shad Bake 1893. ... The very same family, Ingold, that Joseph Mitchell wrote about, taught me to plank it" on oak boards. Moved farther from the fire as it cooks, slowly, for about an hour and a half, the fish is perfection, Letts said. Cook roe separately, and gently, he advised.

The season is over in nearby Hudson waters, but Letts has stockpiled plenty, frozen, for festival samplers. (Shad for a June 7 Connecticut festival will be fresh from the Connecticut River, however.)

Steven Raichlen, in "A Celebration of the Seasons," his 1988 cookbook, wrote that "for many people, the fish is of small consequence -- the mere packaging for another springtime delicacy, shad roe ... imagine the richness of sweetbreads, the subtle liver flavor of foie gras and the sensuous crunch of the finest caviar. If I've failed to convince you, please pass your plate to me."

E-mail sylviacarter@optonline.net.