The Smelt Are Running!

Spring weather might tease us with wild changes between sun and freezing rain, but there's no mistaking the start of the season when smelt start running. Enjoying fried smelt has been a Midwestern food tradition since the 1930s, usually following all-night fishing parties on a lake. The version Joe Flamm serves at Chicago's Café Spiaggia is more upscale, but with echoes of an old-fashioned smelt fry. Battered and fried whole...