My favorite food is fish and one of the best fish is shad (鲥鱼). Shad’s meat is freshly delicate and very tasty because its meat texture is woven by many, many tiny bones. Cool man Jin Shengtan often said that there were three pities in his life: (1) too many bones in shad, (2) no fragrance from cherry-apple, and (3) the unfinished Dream of the Red Chamber. [才子金圣叹常说人生有三恨：“一恨鲥鱼多刺，二恨海棠无香，三恨红楼梦未完。” ]

Shad is extremely expensive in China for its very good taste and relative rareness.

Shad is extremely, extremely cheap in western countries and sometimes is called trash fish because westerners do not use chopsticks and they do not know how to take the tiny bones out in order to enjoy the delicateness of the fish meat.

I used to regularly cook and consume shad when it was available (and also stored some in a freezer in later season), either steaming it with scallions or cooking it in soy sauce with sugar and vinegar. If the fish is fresh and live then it is always better to steam it. Also, shad scales should be kept while steaming it for the oily nutrient will be dissolved into soup to make it delicious. Alternatively, the sugar-vinegar style has its rich taste that I too like it very much.

Later, I learnt the true scientific reason for its good taste: it contains much richer cholesterol than other fishes, say, rock fish or tilapia. A higher cholesterol level is not good to one’s health. This actually fits very well to a principle that anything tasting good is generally not good to one’s health. So, I quit consuming shad afterwards.