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By Root 1003 0

introduction to bluefish, which had a much stronger taste than the haddock my mother always cooked. Betty Anne’s parents were no more southern than my own parents; Eleanor hailed from Boston, Art from Berkeley. If memory serves, Eleanor baked that first batch of bluefish in cream with a few chopped onions: very New England, and delicious despite my earlier bout of seasickness. On subsequent trips to the OBX (Outer Banks), I learned how locals like to prepare whole bluefish—and this recipe with onion, bell pepper, and tomatoes may be the best. Boning a whole baked bluefish, however, isn’t as neat as peeling a potato, so I’ve substituted fillets. Note: Choose a baking dish attractive enough to go from oven to table; no point in trying to transfer fragile baked fish to a heated platter.

2 pounds bluefish or red snapper fillets

2 tablespoons bacon drippings, butter, or vegetable oil

1 small yellow onion, coarsely chopped

1 small green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and coarsely chopped

1 small celery rib, trimmed and finely diced

1 small garlic clove, finely chopped

1 large whole bay leaf

1 teaspoon dried leaf basil, crumbled

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

One 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes with their liquid

1 tablespoon tomato ketchup

½ teaspoon salt, or to taste

¼ teaspoon black pepper, or to taste

¼ teaspoon hot red pepper sauce, or to taste

¼ cup coarsely chopped parsley

1. Preheat the oven to 375° F. Divide the bluefish fillets into 6 pieces of equal size and set aside.

2. Heat the drippings in a large, heavy skillet over moderately high heat for about 1 minute or until ripples appear on the skillet bottom. Add the onion, bell pepper, celery, garlic, bay leaf, and basil and cook for 5 to 8 minutes, stirring often, or until limp and lightly browned.

3. Sprinkle the flour evenly over the mixture and cook and stir for about a minute. Add the tomatoes and their liquid, the ketchup, salt, pepper, and red pepper sauce and cook, stirring constantly, for about 3 minutes or until the mixture thickens and boils. Taste the sauce for salt, pepper, and red pepper sauce and adjust as needed. Discard the bay leaf.

4. Spread half the sauce over the bottom of an ungreased 13 × 9 × 2-inch baking dish, arrange the fish in the sauce, then cover with the remaining sauce.

5. Slide onto the middle oven shelf and bake uncovered for 20 to 25 minutes or until the fish almost flakes at the touch of a fork.

6. Sprinkle the parsley evenly over all and serve directly from the baking dish. Accompany with fluffy boiled rice and a crisp green salad.

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Heirloom Recipe

SUN-DRIED HERRING

Clean and fillet fish without separating fish. Pepper heavily and salt as for frying. Pin to clothesline and dry out in the late evening, overnight and until noon the next day. Keep under refrigeration or freeze. These fish may either be broiled or pan fried.

—Roanoke Island Cook Book, compiled by members and friends of the Manteo Woman’s Club, Manteo, North Carolina

Recipe contributed by Mrs. Grizell Fearing

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HERRING RUNS ON THE ROANOKE

“Do you know about the Cypress Grill near Jamesville?” David Perry, editor-in-chief of the University of North Carolina Press, e-mailed me when he heard I was writing a southern cookbook. “It’s only open during the annual herring run and serves herring right out of the Roanoke River, a practice that has been going on since Colonial times.”

I’d read about Cypress Grill in Gourmet, The Smithsonian, and elsewhere. But until recently, I’d never made the two-hour drive east from Chapel Hill to feast on herring right out of the latte-colored Roanoke, which eddies seaward less than 100 feet from the Grill’s front door.

A friend and I drove down early one Saturday in late March to beat the lunch crowd and arrived an hour before the place opened. No problem. We sat at a picnic table, watched speedboats zip up and down the river, and talked to seventy-three-year-old Leslie Gardner, who’s owned Cypress Grill for more than thirty years (it opened in 1936 as a clubhouse for local fishermen).