TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — A shortage of whitefish in
the Great Lakes region resulting partly from the winter deep freeze is
coming at an inconvenient time for Jewish families: the Passover
holiday, when demand is high because it’s a key ingredient in a
traditional recipe.
Markets in Chicago and Detroit were among
those struggling to fill whitefish orders before the beginning of the
eight-day celebration Monday evening, and a representative of a
commercial fishing agency said the shortfall extended as far as New
York.
"Everybody’s pulling their hair out," said Kevin Dean,
co-owner of Superior Fish Co., a wholesaler near Detroit whose latest
shipment provided just 75 pounds of whitefish although he requested 500
pounds. "I’ve never seen it this bad this time of year."
The dish
that inspires such angst is gefilte fish, which somewhat resembles meat
loaf or meatballs. Recipes handed down for generations vary but
typically call for ground-up fish and other components such as onions,
carrots, eggs and bread crumbs. Other fish such as cod, pike and trout
are sometimes a part of the mix, but whitefish is especially popular.
"Just
smelling that gefilte fish aroma tells my senses that it’s a Jewish
holiday," said Jason Miller, a rabbi and director of a kosher food
certification agency in West Bloomfield, Mich.
In the Chicago
suburb of Skokie, Ill., Ira Kirsche of Hungarian Kosher Foods said his
market ordinarily would get 200 to 300 pounds of whitefish daily this
time of year but has had to settle for 10 to 20 pounds.
Justin
Hiller’s family market in suburban Detroit eventually received the 4,000
pounds it needed to meet demand but it was a close call.
"There was a short period a couple of days before Passover where we had to create a waiting
list," he said.
Gefilte
fish ("gefilte" is a Yiddish word for "stuffed") originated in eastern
Europe, where it was an inexpensive and tasty choice for Sabbath and
holiday meals, Miller said. Because it could be prepared ahead of time,
it provided a way to avoid violating the Jewish law against deboning
fish on the Sabbath.
It’s also available frozen or in cans or jars. But for many, only homemade will do.
Elyse
Fine of Rochester, N.Y., who travels to the Chicago area yearly to
prepare Seder meals for extended family, said her family used jar
varieties until about 10 years ago when her husband suggested she try
producing it from scratch.
"Everybody loved it," Fine said. "Now they don’t want me to go back to the jar
stuff."
She finally located some whitefish an hour’s drive away after coming up short at stores closer to home.

The
whitefish shortfall is yet another ripple effect of the bitterly cold
winter, which caused more than 90 percent of the Great Lakes surface
area to freeze over. In some places, the ice cover was many feet thick,
leaving commercial crews stuck in port.
"You have a lot of boats
that can’t get out to fish, even now," said Chuck Bronte, senior fishery
biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Green Bay, Wis.
Native
American crews in northern Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, as well as
Lake Superior, were able to drop their nets through holes drilled in the
ice, said Mark Ebener, fishery assessment biologist with the Chippewa
Ottawa Resource Authority, which regulates tribal fishing in the area.
They had some success but the whitefish population has dropped in recent years, making the Passover
shortage worse, he said.
The
reason is unclear, although some scientists blame invasive mussels,
which create food scarcity in aquatic food chains by gobbling vast
amounts of plankton.
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