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Washington, D.C., circa 1920. "Shad fishing on the Potomac." National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.
and they are delicious! Shad have returned to the Delaware and the Hudson recently -- they are a yummy sign that spring is on the way!
My guess would be that our ancestors found them so yummy simply because they were cheap and plentiful. During the Civil War when those who should have been farming and fishing were instead fighting, food was scarce and expensive, so easily caught fish like shad were bound to be featured on the menu.
Shad are trashy fish and I don't understand why our ancestors once thought them so yummy. Read Civil War history and you'll find numbers of references to "shad fries" or "shad bakes" given by soldiers. Along reservoir shorelines in Ohio I've seen shad lying dead by the thousands, stiff as a board and rotting, blown onto land during a storm. Perhaps this young man in the corduroys never tasted a walleye.
On the right is the bow of the boat seen in a previous post.
The one that got away was trying to eat this little guy.
... you'll love shad. As far as I'm concerned it's so bony as to be scarcely edible. Shad roe, in contrast, is one of life's finer delicacies.
Lewis Hine, where are you when we need you?
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