Potted Shad (a very convenient and excellent dish).
Take three or four fresh caught shad, and when nicely dressed, cut them down the middle, and across in pieces about three inches wide; put these pieces into a jar in layers, with salt, whole cloves, pepper-corns, and allspice sprinkled between. When all is laid in, put in sharp vinegar enough just to cover them, and bake in the oven. It is the best way to put the jar into a brick oven after the bread is drawn, if considerable heat still remains, and let it stand two or three hours, or put it into a range oven at night, to stand till morning. This will keep several weeks, even in hot weather. Almost any fish of the size of shad may be done in the same way.
Brook Trout.
If they are small, fry them with salt pork. If large, boil them, and serve with drawn butter.
Clams.
The round clams, sometimes called quahogs, are much the most healthy. The small ones, with thin edges, are to be preferred. They may be roasted upon a gridiron, or laid in an iron pan upon a stove. When the shell begins to open, pour the liquor into a sauce-pan, and cut the clam from the shell and put with it. When all are taken out, set the sauce-pan on the coals, and when the clams boil up, add pepper and a bit of butter, and pour them upon toasted bread.
Clam broth is made by washing them very clean, and boiling till the shells open; then take out the clams and put them into the water again. Boil them a few minutes, add a little butter and flour, and put toasted crackers in the tureen into which you put the broth. This is very healthy for feeble persons.
Smelts.
Soak smelts a little while in warm water; scrape them, and cut the heads so far that you can gently pull them off, and thus draw out the dark vein that runs through the body; then rinse and lay them into a dry cloth while you fry two or three slices of salt pork crisp. Dip the smelts into a plate of fine Indian meal, and fry them brown. If you fry them in lard or drippings, sprinkle them with salt, but not until they are nearly done, as they will not brown as well, if it is put on at first.
To prepare Salt Shad, Mackerel, or Halibut's Fin to Broil.