February 7, 2014 — Quick: what’s the last commercial fish species still caught in San Francisco Bay? Nope, not oysters, not Dungeness crab. It’s herring, and right now, our herrings’ winter spawning run is in full swing. If you’ve ever wanted to go hyperlocal in your seafood eating, now’s your chance to get these healthy, delicious, and very sustainable fish onto your table. Fresh herring is popping up on restaurant menus and fish markets around the Bay Area. (The second annual Sausalito Herring Festival was planned for Sunday, Feb. 9, but has unfortunately been cancelled due to the weekend’s storm.)
If you have Scandinavian, German, Eastern European or Jewish roots, you’ve probably eaten herring before–probably pickled, maybe smoked, often doused in sour cream sauce with sliced onions. Sometimes fat chunks of pickled herring were wrapped around olives, onions, or pickles, in a preparation typically known as rollmops. As a Jewish kid in New Jersey, I grew up with a perpetual jar of herring in the fridge, and that’s where I thought herring came from: out of the fridge, from a jar.
Not so. The Pacific herring’s spawning run from the open ocean into San Francisco Bay typically happens between mid-January and mid-March, to the delight of both commercial and sport fishermen. Many thousands of sea gulls, cormorants, pelicans, murres, ducks, sea lions, and more go into a squawking, barking feeding frenzy when the fat, roe-filled herring arrive. So far, the herring population this year looks quite robust, good news after the near-collapse of the population in 2009, when the state closed down the commercial herring fishery completely in hopes of letting the spawning fish rebuild their numbers. As a “forage fish” for dozens of predators, herring is a valuable food source for a wide range of bird and marine life in the area, supporting many migrating birds along the Pacific Flyway, as well as sea lions, salmon, even whales.
The golden roe, or egg sacs, of the female herring are treasured in Japan, where they are known as kazunoko and are especially prized as a delicacy for Shogatsu, or Japanese New Year. Until quite recently, most of the local herring catch focused on the roe, which were salted and sent to Japan. The rest of the fish were often used for fishmeal, pet food, or even discarded.
Now, however, local awareness of this tasty, seasonal fish has grown, and more and more restaurants and fish markets are featuring it during its short winter season. Herring is rich in omega-3 fats and vitamin D, and since it eats low on the food chain, feeding on drifting phytoplankton (tiny plants) and zooplankton (mostly tiny crustaceans and larvae), it typically contains very low levels of mercury and other heavy metals that large fish like tuna and swordfish can accumulate.
Read the full story at Bay Area Bites