Cousin Pete dropped off a bucket of quahogs yesterday. So what was a guy to do on a sunny November Friday afternoon but sit outside on the back steps with a clam knife and open them them up for a nice batch of chowder? Pure bliss. Even the schnauzer was into it.
After shucking about six dozen clams into a bowl, taking care to reserve their juices — or “liquor” as my grandfather called the precious gray essence de clam — I drove up to Stop & Shop to buy a bag of potatoes, some yellow onions, a couple of cans of evaporated milk and a hunk of salt pork.
Salt pork used to be in the meat case near the linguica and other processed pig products, but alas none was to be found. I asked the nice man re-stocking the chicken bin if there was any hiding in back but he shrugged and informed me the stuff is now banned in Massachusetts.
Banned? Are you shitting me? On what grounds? This was the protein of choice for Cape Cod whalemen, packed in barrels for the long ride to the Pacific. Glistening squares of white pig fat encrusted with handfuls of salt. A cardiac surgeons annuity. The second most important ingredient in a true clam chowder after the clams.
So I searched and sure enough I learned that last year the goo-goo’s on Beacon Hill banned the sale of salt pork and some other pig products thanks to a moronic referendum passed in 2016 by the tree huggers and dirt worshippers among us.
F#&k that noise! I can learn how to make my own just like I make my own pancetta and bacon and sausage. So off to the cookbook shelf to find Michael Ruhlman’s Charcuterie, where he writes:
“Salt pork was one of the most important cured items in Europe, especially so in the age of great exploration because, properly handled, it would last in its brine for up to two years (or even longer, according to some sources) at room temperature. When the cook wanted to use it, he simply removed a piece from its brine, soaked it in water, and simmered it long and slow.”
Salt pork is an essential ingredient for a true Cape Cod clam chowder. It’s diced, fried, and removed for use as a garnish on the finished product. It imparts a wonderful flavor to the onions and potatoes and there is no substitute (in my case I had a nice piece of home-made pancetta which will have to do for now.)
Imagine if the voters of the Commonwealth had banned this stuff in the 1830s? There would have been riots on the docks of New Bedford and Nantucket.
Here’s a link to my disquisition on the topic of a proper clam chowder from 20o7. I’m so pissed off I might even write a letter to RFK Jr. and beseech our new health czar to make Cape Cod chowder great again.
