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Shad, Potted
Clean the shad, take off the head, tail, and fins, and cut the fish into pieces to suit the jar in which it is to be potted. Pound, first separately and afterwards together, two blades of mace, two tea-spoonfuls of allspice, and a tea-spoonful of cloves. Sprinkle a little pepper, salt, and cayenne over the pieces of fish, pack them in layers in a jar, and dredge a little of the seasoning over each layer. When the jar is full cover the whole with vinegar, put the lid on the jar, or if it is necessary to tie a covering of paper or cloth over it, lay a piece of dough upon this to prevent the steam escaping. Put the shad in a moderate oven, and bake until done enough. Keep the potted fish covered with the liquor till wanted. It will make a good breakfast relish. Herrings may be potted in the same way. Time to bake, about three hours.
This is a soused-fish preparation of the kind Victorian households kept on the sideboard for weeks at a time. The cooking itself is unremarkable; the storage instruction is what makes it unsafe, and there are also problems with the fish itself.
- The hinge is the storage, not the baking"Keep the potted fish covered with the liquor till wanted" means an unrefrigerated jar of cooked fish held under a vinegar of unknown strength. Sealed low-acid fish held at room temperature is the classic setting for Clostridium botulinum — including the cold-tolerant type E strains associated with fish — and nothing here measures the acidity that would prevent it.
- The dough seal makes it worseThe covering deserves attention -- the recipe prefers a jar lid, and only 'if it is necessary' a paper or cloth cover luted with dough. That seal was intended to hold steam in during baking, and it is nothing like a true canning process; it should not be relied on to make the pack safe, though it is also not a proven airtight closure.
- No temperature, no verifiable process"A moderate oven" and "bake until done enough" would in other contexts translate to about 350F and a simple doneness test, but a preserve needs a measured process temperature and hold time. There is no way to reconstruct one from this text. Use a current, tested recipe for pickled or canned fish if you want to keep it.
- Vinegar of unknown strengthNineteenth-century household vinegar varied widely and was often homemade. Safe acidified fish depends on knowing the acetic acid concentration and the final pH of the pack; the recipe gives neither, and the fish's own moisture dilutes whatever is poured over.
- Shad itselfThe shad of British rivers were the allis and twaite shad, both of which are now protected to varying degrees in the UK and in much of Europe, with taking restricted or prohibited depending on species and jurisdiction. American shad runs are under moratorium in several Atlantic states. Availability is a legal question before it is a culinary one.
- Whole spicesTwo blades of mace is a small quantity, commonly reckoned at somewhere around a quarter teaspoon of ground mace, though published equivalents vary. The recipe asks for the spices to be pounded separately and then together; it does not say why.
Potting and sousing were among the Victorian household's answers to a glut of oily fish: pack it tight, drown it in spiced vinegar, seal the jar with a rope of dough and let the oven do the work, after which the pot could sit in the larder as a standing breakfast dish. The technique is closely related to the soused herring and the Yorkshire potted-herring recipes that survive in modern kitchens -- sousing fish in vinegar is a good deal older than this book -- and the recipe's own note that "herrings may be potted in the same way" shows how interchangeable the fish were. Shad -- a large, exceptionally bony member of the herring family that runs up rivers to spawn -- was cheap and abundant in nineteenth-century America, and its bones were one reason cooks favoured long, slow, acidic cooking, which softens them. The same abundance did not last: heavy river fishing, dams and pollution reduced the European shad runs so far that the British species are now legally protected, and the dish has largely gone with them.