Alosa served as the focal point of John McPhee's book "The Founding Fish". The roe, or more properly the entire engorged uterus of the American shad—filled with ripening eggs, sautéed in clarified butter and garnished with parsley and a slice of lemon—is considered a great delicacy, and commands high prices when available. Alosa Alosa is a genus of fish, the river herrings, in the family Clupeidae. Along with other genera in the subfamily Alosinae, they are generally known as shads. They are distinct from other herrings by having a deeper body and spawning in rivers. Several species can be found on
American herring gull American herring gull The American herring gull or Smithsonian gull ("Larus smithsonianus" or "Larus argentatus smithsonianus") is a large gull that breeds in North America, where it is treated by the American Ornithologists' Union as a subspecies of herring gull ("L. argentatus"). Adults are white with gray back and wings, black wingtips with white spots, and pink legs. Immature birds are gray-brown and are darker and more uniform than European herring gulls, with a darker tail. It occurs in a variety of habitats including coasts, lakes, rivers and garbage dumps. Its broad diet includes invertebrates, fish, and many other items.