Shad Roe Memories
I got a lot of response to my April 1 column on shad roe. Much of it was of the “gross” variety.
“It is one of the worst foods I’ve ever eaten and I’ve eaten plenty of strange ones,” one reader said.
Elizabeth Lasley wrote fondly of shad remembered from her childhood in the 1930s. “I grew up in southeastern Virginia, and we looked forward to ‘the shad run’ in the Chowan River,” she wrote. “My father would purchase one or more of the fish, the roe was cooked separately, and the fish was cooked whole, usually baked. My mother dealt with the small bones by making horizontal cuts about 3/8 ” apart all along the sides of the fish, and laying a couple of strips of bacon on top.”
Others mentioned a tradition I hadn’t heard of.
Barbara Bowman wrote, “Every year when the shad (with roe) were in season, my dad would cook up one of his specialties, ‘shad roe and eggs.’ I remember that the roe was cooked, scrambled up with the eggs, but other than that, I don’t know how he went about the preparations. It was always a treat though – so before you give up on shad roe forever, you need to try it scrambled with eggs!”
