My earliest and one of my fondest of memories of a mostly local food is related to the egg sac or roe of the shad fish. My grandparents lived in Higganum, CT during WWII. Come spring, the shad season, there was a local fisherman by the name of Bill Maynard that used to catch, clean and sell shad and shad roe in the area. He smoked a pipe and as luck would have it, my grandfather was able to get his hands on Bill’s favorite brand of tobacco when it was generally scarce. Bill never forgot.
As a kid, I vaguely remember going to Maynard’s for shad and shad roe. According to my grandparents, Bill was the only one in the world that knew how to bone a shad properly. I believe it. In my mother’s latter years, I used to drive her from Long Island, NY up to a shop near the Connecticut River to buy shad and shad roe. It had to be from the Connecticut River.
I haven’t had any shad or shad roe in a number of years. Spring is here. Maybe I should go to Connecticut.
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