It’s nice to have a little side project when you go on vacation. Even if you’re going somewhere just to relax and absorb light, maybe you’ll decide to take a scuba diving lesson. Or if you’re going to Paris, besides seeing the Mona Lisa and climbing the Eiffel Tower, your stretch goal might be to smoke a joint at the grave of Jim Morrison.
Or maybe you’ll be in Bermuda, where they frown severely at pot smoking in cemeteries and there are no famous dead people anyway, so you decide to find the island’s very best version of Bermuda Fish Chowder.
Bermuda is a lovely place. We have great family friends there. But if you’re hunting for culinary surprises, it begins and ends with the addition of beef broth to fish chowder. I say this with love; it’s actually a cool idea. It probably came from having a lot of British canned goods, and a lot of fish. And the fact that no one, especially in a hot, humid place, likes to make fish broth, though there’s often some of that in there too.
I don’t want to say how many versions I’ve tried. Well, OK; five or six. Those served in the island’s lauded tourist haunts were just mysteriously hearty, underspiced variations on the theme of bouillabaisse, cioppino, and other tomato-based seafood soups. But the more modern, less formal, more ethnic and overall less established establishments were doing some interesting things. I picked up on doses of Mediterranean herbs, a little sweet spice, and a touch of curry powder.
Back home, it took a few tries to get happy. I subbed in my own local fish for the grouper and snapper of the isles. I added fennel. I added diced scallops, which no one in Bermuda would do, just to be a dick. They were great. They sweeten the pot, and add a different texture to the shreds and chunks of fish. I’m done, for the moment.
So this is Bermuda for me now: a bowl of soup and some memories. There are still people there that I can and will visit again, but I lied up above when I said there are no famous dead people. My friend Benny Sousa is buried there and he was as famous as you can possibly be, albeit in a small circle.
Benny was one of Bermuda’s first taxi drivers, knew JFK, and hired F. Lee Bailey to help him build Bermuda’s first condominium. He found the process, and Lee Bailey, so annoying that he traded the permits for an office building in Hamilton. He never wore shoes except in restaurants, smoked the end of his cigars in a corncob pipe, and made me hashed shark for breakfast. It was pretty bad.
When he finally got sick for the first and last time in his long life, they turned him away from the hospital for having bare feet. I wrote him a song about it. It was also pretty bad. Even the hashed shark was better. But I’m working on it. The recipe below is dedicated to his memory.
Recipe: Bermuda Fish Chowder
A lusty chowder made with various fish and shellfish, tomatoes, beef broth(!) and a bit of curry.
-Full Post-
Toast the whole spices (fennel, black pepper, cloves) for a minute or two in a dry pan until fragrant, then grind in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. Saute the diced onions, shallots, leeks, celery and carrots all together in butter over medium heat for five or six minutes until soft but not brown. Add the freshly ground spices, along with the red pepper flakes, herbes de provence and curry powder, to the vegetables and saute a minute or two longer.
Add the canned diced tomatoes, sherry, rum, Worcestershire sauce and tomato paste. Bring all to a simmer for a few minutes to evaporate the alcohol. If the tomatoes are chunky, break them up a bit with a potato masher. Add the broths, bring to a medium boil and reduce by about a quarter, until slightly thickened.
Add all the diced fish and scallops and simmer ten minutes more, until fish flakes easily. Break the fish up a bit more, if needed, with a wooden spoon or potato masher - there should be some shreds as well as chunks. Taste for seasonings. Serve with extra dark rum, sherry peppers, or other hot sauce.
Bermuda fish chowder is the only fish soup I know of that uses beef broth. With the tomato, it actually adds quite a bit of depth. I know I've tossed in a lot of herbs and spices here, but they add a lot to this dish and bloom in the spoon, as it were.
It's impossible to serve this in Bermuda without small shaker bottles of dark rum and the ubiquitous Outerbridge's Sherry Pepper Sauce. Outerbridge's is OK. I'd buy it at the airport, but I wouldn't pay $15 for it on Amazon. You can add a half cup of sherry to any type of sliced hot red peppers (the original uses bird peppers but is only mildly hot) and a bit of salt, let it sit overnight in a jar, and you'll be fine. Or just set out Tabasco, or the heat of your choice.
About fish or clam broth - I've never bought one I wouldn't pour into the ocean rather than incorporate into a dish for me and mine. What I do is freeze the drainage from my own steamed clams, mussels, and lobsters, and boil it up at some point with water, a little white wine, salt, bay leaves and leftover shrimp shells. Shrimp shells, even cooked ones, add a lot.
There is something very British colonial about this dish, very fluted-columns-on-the-veranda, but it's hearty and somehow nostalgic, even if you've never had it. I've spiced the classic recipes up a bit to bring this more in line with my own taste, as well as to copy the favorite - and most Caribbean - of the many versions I've had there.
Ingredients
Directions
Toast the whole spices (fennel, black pepper, cloves) for a minute or two in a dry pan until fragrant, then grind in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. Saute the diced onions, shallots, leeks, celery and carrots all together in butter over medium heat for five or six minutes until soft but not brown. Add the freshly ground spices, along with the red pepper flakes, herbes de provence and curry powder, to the vegetables and saute a minute or two longer.
Add the canned diced tomatoes, sherry, rum, Worcestershire sauce and tomato paste. Bring all to a simmer for a few minutes to evaporate the alcohol. If the tomatoes are chunky, break them up a bit with a potato masher. Add the broths, bring to a medium boil and reduce by about a quarter, until slightly thickened.
Add all the diced fish and scallops and simmer ten minutes more, until fish flakes easily. Break the fish up a bit more, if needed, with a wooden spoon or potato masher - there should be some shreds as well as chunks. Taste for seasonings. Serve with extra dark rum, sherry peppers, or other hot sauce.
Bermuda fish chowder is the only fish soup I know of that uses beef broth. With the tomato, it actually adds quite a bit of depth. I know I've tossed in a lot of herbs and spices here, but they add a lot to this dish and bloom in the spoon, as it were.
It's impossible to serve this in Bermuda without small shaker bottles of dark rum and the ubiquitous Outerbridge's Sherry Pepper Sauce. Outerbridge's is OK. I'd buy it at the airport, but I wouldn't pay $15 for it on Amazon. You can add a half cup of sherry to any type of sliced hot red peppers (the original uses bird peppers but is only mildly hot) and a bit of salt, let it sit overnight in a jar, and you'll be fine. Or just set out Tabasco, or the heat of your choice.
About fish or clam broth - I've never bought one I wouldn't pour into the ocean rather than incorporate into a dish for me and mine. What I do is freeze the drainage from my own steamed clams, mussels, and lobsters, and boil it up at some point with water, a little white wine, salt, bay leaves and leftover shrimp shells. Shrimp shells, even cooked ones, add a lot.
There is something very British colonial about this dish, very fluted-columns-on-the-veranda, but it's hearty and somehow nostalgic, even if you've never had it. I've spiced the classic recipes up a bit to bring this more in line with my own taste, as well as to copy the favorite - and most Caribbean - of the many versions I've had there.