Coastal Cooking – Finnan Haddie

I discussed smoked vacuum-packed haddock with a vendor last Sunday at a Farmer’s Market. While she extolled the virtues of her process, I merely proclaimed sotto voce ” finnan haddie.” She caught my reverential whisper. The promise in her look implied that this sacrament of coastal eating could be mine, with the tiny vacuum-packed candy bar-sized piece of haddock encased in plastic. I resisted sneering as I turned away. I had been used to servings of smoked haddock simmered in cream and browned nicely, which tested your capability to push the dish away. This tiny piece was not going to do it. It would take more than magical incantations, holy water, and the skills of a good coastal Yankee cook to transform that tiny piece of plastic into a culinary success.

I was not always enamored of things like Finnan Haddie. Growing up in New York City, I became familiar with the soup – I can no longer refer to it as Chowder- out of clams in a tomatoey base. I couldn’t touch the stuff because I was allergic to bivalves ( clams, oysters, scallops – you know). But I never knew about fish chowder. So, I got a real education when I left “The City” for points north.

I learned rapidly from an old New Englander that Chowder was initially the term for the pot in which you cooked the soup. That person, from Sargentville on the Blue Hill peninsula, affirmed that no chowder would be authentic without the head of the fish in the pot. Getting the eye in your bowl was great luck, as were the cheeks and tongue delicacies. When I grimaced and told him about how things were done in New York, he acted as though I had some great disability to overcome from a deprived childhood.

I also learned that the head, eyes, cheeks, and tongue were not universal to everyone’s recipe. To diverge a bit, I learned that tongues and cheeks were a specialty dish of their own. Cod cheeks can be about the size of chicken thighs, but they are much more tasty and the best part of the fish. Not everyone gets enthused about tongues; they can be a bit slimy and not to everyone’s taste. I rarely found anyone who had kind words about the eyes.

Now you’ll find me tucked away in someplace like Gordon’s in Portland, or maybe Bob Lobster in Newburyport, inhaling a heaping bowl of Chowder. But the first time that dish was put in front of me, I was so impolite as to ask, “what’s the main course?” Of course, the Chowder was the main course, with ample addition of sea biscuit. I was taken aback. In New York, my experience was that a cup of Chowder was an appetizer. Here was a massive bowl with a mountain of fish heaped in the middle.

With regards to finnan haddie, it seems to have originated in the area of Aberdeen, Scotland, and spread throughout England. With good haddock stocks available offshore in New England, it became a popular dish on the coast. I became familiar with it as a dinner item, but some in England prefer it as a breakfast food.

Like the saying,” You can’t get there from here,” you can’t get suitable ingredients for a great Finnan Haddie out of a supermarket. That thin stuff they sell has been injected with water and coated with “liquid smoke” rather than correctly smoked. It’s an abomination. While you may not have to be a billionaire to afford the makings, you won’t get off lightly, but it will be worthwhile.

Search for the real deal. As the saying goes, accept no substitutions. You won’t be sorry.