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Photo courtesy Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum
“Sea Clam,” block print by Howard Mitcham, courtesy Sabina Donnamario. |
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Howard Mitcham, Renaissance Man
“Artist, block print maker, chef par excellence, pro-beatnik, draughtsman and one of the most talented ‘nuts’ ever to come into Provincetown,” is how the editor of the Provincetown Advocate described Howard Mitcham. A search through old copies of the newspaper turns up references to the Howard Mitcham Gallery as well as classified advertisements for sign painting and clock repair. During the 1960s he wrote a column in the Provincetown Advocate called the Cape Tip Gourmet. Today he is best remembered for his block prints and as a chef and cookbook author.
A benefit dinner for the Portuguese Festival, featuring recipes from Howard Mitcham, will be held at Pepe’s Restaurant on June 11.
Howard Mitcham was born in Winona, Miss. He had a degree in art and architecture from Louisiana State University. At the age of 16 he became deaf from spinal meningitis. He spoke with a thick Southern accent, but also communicated by using sign language, and with a notebook and a pencil he carried to converse with those who didn’t sign.
For many years Howard Mitcham spent six months in New Orleans and six months in Provincetown. In one column he wrote, “First place I headed after arrival was Town Wharf and it made my heart jump to see the enormous hauls of herring that the trap boats were bringing in. But my gourmet’s heart was broken when I found out that this wonderful fish was being knocked down for two bucks and fifty cents a barrel and shipped off to the cat food factory.”
Mitcham cooked in many local restaurants, most notably Pepe’s. He also wrote three cookbooks, all of them now out of print: “Clams, Mussels, Oysters, Scallops & Snails,” a cookbook and memoir, “Creole Gumbo and All That Jazz, and the “Provincetown Seafood Cookbook.”
Food Network star Anthony Bourdain, whose book “Kitchen Confidential” is partially set in Provincetown, regards Mitcham as one of his heroes and the “Provincetown Seafood Cookbook” as one of the best seafood cookbooks ever written. In it Howard Mitcham published, in his words, “thirty years of cooking Cape Cod fish and shellfish pressed into a clam shell. A compendious compendium of the world’s most delicious seafood recipes.” The introduction contains a brief history of Provincetown, with a section on the Portuguese community. He writes, “Transplanting the Azores Islanders to Provincetown was a great step forward because they brought with them their beautifully rambunctious cookery, and this husky, euphoric cuisine has quietly worked its way into Cape Cod and New England cookery in general.” Mitcham continues, “I have been observing Portuguese cooks for twenty-five years, and I find that they have the following relative units of measurement: (1) a little, (2) some, (3) a bit more, (4) a lot, (5) plenty, (6) enough.”
The “Provincetown Seafood Cookbook” also contains lots of Portuguese recipes as well as Provincetown folklore found nowhere else. For instance in Mitcham’s book you’ll find a discussion of Skully Joe, hard dried pollock or scrod that was once a local delicacy and is now hard to find. Its sole reason for existence, Mitcham and his friend John Gaspie agreed, was because it tasted good with beer. John Gaspie was Provincetown’s long-time shellfish warden and one of Howard Mitcham’s closest friends. But the main reason for the book’s popularity is, of course, the recipes. Mitcham said, “People think I’m sort of coo-coo to publish my trade secrets and recipes, but to me good food is like love, it should be given as wide a distribution as possible.”
Howard Mitcham died at the age of 79 on August 22, 1996, at Cape Cod Hospital. His recipe for Haddock Amandine and a lot of other dishes live on. Here is a recipe from Howard Mitcham’s “Provincetown Seafood Cookbook.” Mitcham said that in all his years as a chef the most popular recipe was Haddock Amandine Meuniere.
Haddock Amandine Meuniere
(Serves 6)
6 3/4 lb. haddock fillets juice of 2 lemons
Milk, flour, 1/2 lb. butter 1/4 lb. sliced natural almonds
4 fresh mushrooms sliced thinly
Take the haddock fillets and dip them in milk, then dredge them in flour (the yellow dry clam batter which is used in restaurants is even better). Shake off the surplus flour. Melt the butter in a large skillet and place the fish in it, skin side up; cook slowly until brown, then flip it over with a spatula and brown the other side. Remember, this is a sauté, a slow cook, not a hot fry, which would destroy the delicate flavor of the fish. Remove the fish and place on warm serving plates. Add the lemon juice to the butter in the pan, add the almonds to the pan, add the mushrooms. Raise the heat high and stir and scrape the bottom and sides of the pan to release any browned crumbs; these are delicious. Stir until the almonds turn a light golden brown (don’t let them get too brown or they will be bitter); pour this sauce over the fish and serve immediately, piping hot.
[Laurel Guadazno is curator of education for the Pilgrim Monument & Provincetown Museum.]
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May 18th, 2006