#john mcelwee

[theoxfordamerican]

Earl Brown, Vice President of the Blue Monday Shad Fry, displays uncooked roe. East Arcadia, April 2013.

 Blue Monday, continued

 I first attended the East Arcadia Blue Monday Shad Fry in April 2013. My business there was to do with a folklife documentation project for the NC Folklife Institute. I arrived at Lock and Dam No. 1 with my colleague, the folklorist Steve Kruger, around noon. Steve and I were fairly conspicuous—white guys with notebooks and cameras. Everyone was very generous and welcoming. When I asked if I could have another helping of shad roe, Earl Brown shoveled about two pounds off the cooker onto the paper plate that I was holding, which bent under the weight.

 Read the rest of Chris Fowlers’ Blue Monday companion photo essay: Things to Eat.

[theoxfordamerican]

ISSUE 86: Blue Monday

Photography by Chris Fowler

A delicate incision down the female shad’s stomach liberates a pair of surprisingly large vaguely orange lobes, redolent of lungs. Connected by a bloody membrane, each pouch contains about 300,000 eggs, and they are most commonly poached or sautéed intact. In season, you can get shad roe at New York’s Grand Central Oyster Bar, with bacon and a broiled tomato, for about thirty dollars. Hominy Grill in Charleston sautées roe in butter and serves it with bacon, mushrooms, asparagus, lemon, garlic, and Tabasco, and at Atlanta’s Empire State South, it’s cured and plated with butter and sliced radishes.

Read the rest of John McElwee's Blue Monday, from our fall issue.