(Photo: the Mayflower and the Clam Chowder)
I did the NARRAGANSET CLEAR CLAM CHOWDER again this year, but, it has expanded to include ASH WEDNESDAY 14 February and Fridays after six pm stations of the cross.
This has improved the gathering and the main purpose of lent not as giving up, but also coming together and closer to the central part of faith with more understanding.
The true story of the first thanksgiving was the story of Sasquah who was a Wampanoag from the village where the pilgrims landed. He was captured by the French, sold to the Spanish, and went to England. During that time his village had been wiped out by smallpox.
When he returned he found his village gone and in their place was a small Colony of pilgrims who had landed late November 1620. Sasquah worked with them to survive the winter of 1620 by showing how to make the soup and recover the corn, that was put in the jars buried in the old huts.
The first thanksgiving was celebrated in the spring after the first harvest in 1621. Native American recipes are based on what you gather not the amounts.
This time I used whole Quahaugs from “Gold belly” from the Narraganset tribe fishermen who gathered the whole clams. This means an extra step in the process oof making the Soup. The clams are flash frozen, so, the clams are put into a pot with “warm” water with some salt usually a teaspoon to soak for one hour.
When they clean themselves, you shuck the clams putting the mussels in a separate pot. These are chopped and put some mussels for clam cakes (Iggy’s Clam Cake mix) and the rest into the soup in the last ten minutes. Ingredients are: Potatoes (one inch cube) , celery chopped, one onion sated
with chopped bacon for flavor, dill weed 1 teaspoon, bay are seasoning, and chopped parsley for garnish.
This fundraiser made over two hundred dollars for the church activities, and we will do this again in March for two Fridays and Sundays before Easter Week. The Soup preserves quite well in the refrigerator for two to three times use.
By Robert Betancourt Jr.
