or generations, eastern NC fishermen and their families have eaten shad roe in the springtime. Spring is the time of year when the Shad fish “run.” The Shad do not literally grow legs and run but it is a “run” when the Shad fish (a member of the Herring family) come in from the ocean and lay their eggs in the freshwater estuaries of the North Carolina sounds. Most people in the Piedmont or Mountains of North Carolina have not prepared nor tasted Shad roe before. Since Shad roe is limited to a couple weeks of the year, here in Raleigh we are fortunate to have Locals Seafood, who sources and sells this specialty product!

I teach organic gardening, canning, fermentation, dehydration and food preservation workshops at THE GARDENER’S KITCHEN. Learning and teaching new methods of traditional food preservation and storage for locally available food is very exciting to me! Due to its limited availability (and my year-long craving for it!) I made a discovery of a way to preserve the roe for use throughout the year until the next run the following year: Bottarga!