“I think that Mike gave me a cream puff,” John Manion said of Michael Shrader’s chosen ingredient. He’d expected something difficult, like fish eyeballs or ostrich eggs (both previous Key Ingredient ...

It's a universal struggle, trying to pick tiny fish bones out of the otherwise perfectly flaky fish. You spend a good chunk of time either meticulously plucking them out before cooking or anxiously ...

Generally, smelt are cooked with the backbone and ribs intact. When smelt are fried, the bones become crisp and brittle — they are eaten along with the fish. When baked or broiled, the bones don't ...

Still putting together your Feast of the Seven Fishes, La Vigilia? Back in the Providence Journal archives from 2004, is this recipe for smelts - baked, not fried. It came from "Festa Italiana," ...

Robert Kurgan, 5, left, and his brother George, 6, haul in a net with the expectation of a good catch of smelt on April 15, 1960, near North Avenue in Chicago. Anthony Tallarico and his sons, John, 7, ...