Shad may have saved George Washington's army – and countless other European settlers – from starvation, but the bony fish's reputation has declined so precipitously in recent decades that organizers of an annual shad festival in North Carolina are unabashed about excluding it from their festivities.
"We do have fish, but we don't have shad," Grifton Shad Festival secretary Janet Haseley says cheerfully. "We used to have herring, but now we fry commercially raised catfish."
Shad do make a cameo appearance at the 40-year-old festival, which returns to Pitt County this month: In addition to dozens of events punning on shad's name – including Shad-O and a 5K "Spring Shad Run" – the event schedule features a frozen shad toss. "We freeze shad for tossing, and, afterward, we bury them for fertilizer," Haseley says. "Some of the animal people were kind of upset about it, but we think that's a pretty responsible way to do it."
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