table talk / By Joseph Byrd

Sea Food Nation

A History of American Cuisine, Part III

(Feb. 7, 2008)  Fish has always had one problem in American cuisine: Americans don’t much like it, except battered and fried. Prior to the Age Of Sushi, you pretty much had to go to a fish restaurant to get anything except fish and chips. Not counting shrimp, which we adore (the longest lines in Vegas buffets are for prawns). Or lobster (the least flavorful of North American shellfish, but with a high snob value, thus “Surf ‘n’ Turf”). And crab (which we often overpower with tomato, as in “Cioppino,” or drench in mayonnaise, as “Louis”). But traditionally, we just don’t much care for fish.

Not entirely without reason. Fish is fragile. It goes from delicate to disgusting way too easy. Anyway, historically we’ve gone from don’t get it, can’t stand it to fished out, can’t find it and don’t much care. Americans eat meat.

A page from Mrs. Beeton’s Every Day Cookery, 1907.

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Shortly after reaching Massachusetts Bay in 1630, Governor John Winthrop took a small boat to sea. Two hours later he returned with “67 coddfishe most of them very great fishe some 1 yard and 1/2 longe.” Cod was central to the discovery, colonization and settlement of the Americas. Well before Columbus, 10th-century Vikings discovered Newfoundland when they probed westward, fishing for cod. Later, the fish became essential to slavery — the best dried cod was exchanged in Europe for goods to be traded for humans in Africa, while lower grades, still highly nutritious, were sold to feed West Indian plantation slaves.

Seafood was so plentiful in early colonial America that descriptions are mythic. My own Virginia ancestor William Byrd II described great schools of sturgeon rising to sun themselves in the summer, fish so large that Indians captured them by riding them bareback. Robert Beverley wrote in 1705 “of rivers so teeming with fish that boats could hardly navigate.” At Plymouth, storms were said to have left lobsters neatly piled on the beaches like cordwood, so plentiful that they were considered fit only for the poor.

While the Northeastern Indians had made considerable use of fish (mostly in stews or soups), the Pilgrims were slow to follow their example. Governor Winthrop notwithstanding, they did not care much for fish, except eels. The citizens of Plymouth Colony fed clams and mussels to their hogs, with the explanation that they were “the meanest of God’s blessings.” New England Clam Chowder wouldn’t arrive for two centuries.

When King Charles I, as a gift to his friend Lord Baltimore, carved Maryland out of Virginia, he carefully set the Potomac River as the boundary, not as customary at the “thalweg,” or median depth, but at the Virginia high-water mark. This had the effect of giving Maryland the rights to Virginia’s fecund oyster beds, launching a series of “oyster wars” over the years. Oysters were popular, fried, baked, made into loaves, soup, scalloped and pickled.

Colonial fish recipes followed the British model: overcooked, and over-sauced.

Put salt, whole spice, white wine, and a bunch of sweet herbs into your water; when it boils put in a little vinegar, for that will make the fish crisp; let it boil apace before you put in your fish; let them boil till they swim, then take them up, and drain them; take a little of the liquor, put it into some butter, flour, two or three anchovies, and some capers; set it over the fire, and beat it up thick, then pour it over the fish, with parsley, capers, orange and lemon.

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