The Founding Fish

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by John McPhee


  The French serve their shad with fresh-sorrel sauce—Alose à l’oseille. In Craig Claiborne and Pierre Franey’s “Classic French Cooking,” Claiborne described shad and sorrel as “a liaison fit for the gods.” In America, you can buy the imported sauce. If you make your own with fresh sorrel, don’t be shy. Larousse Gastronomique will tell you to use two kilos of fresh sorrel.

  Worldwide, there are thirty-some species of shads, of which the American shad is the largest. Asians generally serve them steamed. In India, they are steamed with banana leaves. I have no idea what Africans do with the denticle herring of Cameroon. I’d kipper it.

  Copyright © 2002 by John McPhee

  All rights reserved

  FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX

  18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

  Published in 2002 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  First paperback edition, 2003

  www.fsgbooks.com

  Designed by Gretchen Achilles

  eISBN 9780374706340

  First eBook Edition : March 2011

  Shad dart by Yolanda Whitman

  Some parts of this book first appeared, in slightly different form, in The New Yorker.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: McPhee, John A.

  The founding fish / John McPhee.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-374-10444-3

  ISBN-10: 0-374-10444-1

  1. American shad. 2. Shad fishing—North America—History. I. Title.

  QL638.C64 M4 2002

  597’.45—dc21

  2002025012

  Paperback ISBN-13: 978-0-374-52883-6

  Paperback ISBN-10: 0-374-52883-7

 

 

 


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