Page 71 - Spring2009

Food Feature

ALEWIFE: THE GIFT OF SPRING
By Ronald Halweil, MD

It’s spring, so I can eat fresh alewife roe even two or three. Once I witnessed thousands of
and milt for breakfast! This seasonal treat means fish, shoulder to shoulder, pushing and writhing
winter is over, and many more ultra-fresh fish to get into the freshwater stream through a nar-
will be on the menu for many months to come. rowing, with many fish pushed onto dry land.
The alewife have been arriving in early Sadly, this quantity is now rare; I haven’t
spring along the East Coast of the United States seen so many in twenty years. The sheer number
for thousands of years. This smallish herring fish, of fish available, for free as a “commons” to be
seldom a pound in weight or a foot in length, has used by everyone, gives the false idea that there
always been a source of wonder and nourishment. will always be these multitudes for ever and ever.
The Native Peoples were grateful for fresh, oily We once thought that way about the American
fish to end the tedium of smoked dried fish, bison and the wild salmon of the Pacific. The
venison and oysters. The bulging roe (ovary) and Trustees of Southampton have rules about sharing
milt (teste), loaded these fish but
with thousands of people can eas-
fine eggs and mil- ily break these Through
lions of sperm, were rules. The NY
a potent winter’s State DEC is im- forty
end natural gift of potent because years in the
vitamins, minerals, the alewife is practice of
fat and protein. And not considered
these fish appeared a game fish, and medicine,
by the hundreds of they only regu- Ron Halweil,
thousands as they late game fish. MD, never lost
exchanged their salt water life for a breeding The local police say the only violations for these
interlude in sheltered fresh water streams and greedy harvesters would be for littering. I have his love for
ponds, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to North seen people with more than one thousand fish fishing.
Carolina. Believe it or not, the alewife still arrives for a night’s work, and they may have used nets Dr. Halweil
in the Hamptons. strung across the neck of the stream, preventing
We are not the only animals waiting for these even one fish from entering the breeding grounds. shares his

fish. Herons, osprey, swans, sea gulls, crows, If no fish return to fresh water to spawn, how interest in
muskrats, opossums, and yes, rats, eagerly take will we get the next generation? These fish, like health and
advantage of this gift of Nature. salmon, only return to the stream of their birth,
following the scents of their nursery waters. nature with his
A GIFT WORTH PROTECTING wife of
I have personally indulged in this spring feast ENJOYING THE ALEWIFE thirty-six years,
for twenty-five years, so it is very real to me. The alewife “run” can last a couple of
There are times when I am alone with the fish, months. When my children were young and we his two
and can quickly catch twenty or thirty fish with lived in Manhattan, they were excited to join me children and
my dip net, a traditional way to catch them at this in this harvest. One time we took our very fresh two beautiful
time of year. At other times there may be many fish to the beach where we started a small fire in
people or fewer fish, and it’s difficult to catch the lee of a dune and roasted alewife on wooden granddaughters.

SPRING 2009 Wise Traditions 69