James Beard’s 1964 Visit to Portland

BeardDoyon4In November 1964 LBJ had just defeated Goldwater, the Sardine Law was front page news,  and famed chef and food writer James Beard visited Portland to lead a 4-day series of cooking demonstrations organized by the Portland Symphony Orchestra as a fundraising activity for their 1964-65 season.

Reporter Hazel Loveitt from the Press Herald along with “more than 200 women and two men” (Brunswick chef Pete Doyon and home cook Harry Dunbar) were on site for the first day of classes. Loveitt reported,

Beard’s heroic proportions belied his agility as he did a culinary ballet between the stove, oven and food preparation. When he added “about a half teaspoon” of vanilla to the filling he was making for apple flan the master chef dispensed the flavoring directly from the bottle to the cooking pan with the flair of a showman.

While using the slim handleless French rolling pin to roll the tart flan Beard explained that the pin was easier to guide than the more common rolling pin.

An earlier version of the article was certainly a product of the times. President Kennedy has delivered his famous challenge for a moon landing 2 years earlier, and the article referred to the rolling pin as a “slim space-aged model”.

beardbookletThe town was still in the afterglow of Beard’s visit several day later when the paper published a follow-on piece which concluded “All calories aside, we’ve been living in a gastronomical Shangri-La.”

Beard was assisted with the classes by Ruth Norman and they were held at the State Street Church. Their entire series of 5 classes went for $12 per person. Accounting for inflation that would be $91 in today’s dollars—a bargain in any decade.

A half century later few people in town remember Beard’s visit, but as luck would have it one of few artifacts of that week, a booklet from Beard’s classes (shown above), came into the possession of Rabelais Books, and owner Don Lindgren brought it to my attention. It contains 34 pages of recipes from the classes. They’re an interesting mix of French, Italian, American and Asian cooking such as Salad Nicoise, Shish Kebab, Rummed Crab Spread, Cannelloni, Crepes Duxelles, Barbecued Spareribs and Fried Rice.

Many thanks to PSO historian Hank Schmidtt and to the Symphony for their assistance in researching this article.

 

 

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Amergian Bros.

AmergianCross West Bayside on Oxford Street and you’re likely to spot this old sign for the former Amergian Brothers neighborhood market at the intersection with Chestnut Street. It was founded by George Amergian in 1928 in what was then the Armenian neighborhood in Portland. The market remained in business until the beginning of the 21st century and was for many year’s run by his nephew Edward Mardigan.

Farmers’ Market History, Part 2

The Maine Sunday Telegram has published an article (part 2 of 2) about the history of the Portland Farmers’ Market.

Over the centuries, the market rose and fell, and rose again, along with the fortunes of the city. Over the market’s 246-year lifespan, it has moved at least half a dozen times, operated indoors and out, sometimes at multiple locations, and has almost been extinguished by industrial agriculture and the popularity of supermarkets.

You can read part 1 of this article online.

Gritty’s 25th Anniversary

Today’s Press Herald includes a front page article about Gritty’s 25 years in business and the impact they’ve had on Maine’s craft beer industry.

“Yeah, I’d say [Dave] Geary and those guys ([Gritty’s co-founders] Stebbins and Pfeffer) were sort of the godfathers of Maine brewing, and today the scene is just so filled with talented people, very small outfits finding a niche for themselves,” said Houghton, who also runs The Liberal Cup brew pub in Hallowell. “The main reason I’m in Maine is because of Gritty McDuff’s.”

Bangor Daily News and publisher of The Bollard has also written about Gritty’s 25 anniversary in his weekly column.

Together with David Geary, Dave Evans of The Great Lost Bear, and Alan Eames of Three Dollar Dewey’s, Gritty’s founders Richard Pfeffer and Ed Stebbins deserve a significant amount of credit for the scores of breweries, thousands of jobs and millions of dollars the microbrew movement has brought to Maine since the 1980s. For that alone, Pfeffer and Stebbins deserve the key to the city and a big bear hug from Gov. Paul LePage…

Gritty’s 25th Anniversary Party is taking place at 4pm today at their Portland location.

Historical Menus & Food Trucks

Today’s Press Herald includes an interesting article about the Maine Historical Society’s collection of old menus,

Remember The Roma Cafe, known for ages as “Portland’s most romantic restaurant” and the place you had to take your date on Valentine’s, or else suffer the consequences?

There are also menus for Hu Shang on Exchange Street and the Victory Deli in Monument Square (where Foley’s Bakery is now), both former frequent lunch spots for Press Herald reporters. At the end of the day, when we wanted a cocktail, we went down to Cotton Street Cantina. (On the menu, it’s called Cotton Street Tropical Grill and Bar.)

and passing reference to recommended changes to the food truck regulations (at the very end of the article) made by the Health and Human Services Committee.

The changes would allow food trucks to cluster in certain zones by eliminating a rule that trucks be at least 65 feet from each other. And operators would have to pay only $30 for a permit to operate on private property, rather than $105.

J’s Oyster Bar

Maine magazine has posted an article about J’s Oyster Bar that appeared in the July issue.

On the stool to my right sits a slight man in a baseball cap with a gray mustache who tells me, “I was here on opening night back in 1977!” The man is Frank Kimball. He is 75 years old, grew up on Peaks Island, and is a former Navy sailor, postman, drag racer, and husband. He doesn’t eat oysters, but he loves the scallop casserole. “You got to get it,” he says. “The atmosphere is 90 percent of the reason I come here. The rest is the scallop casserole.”

Portland Food History: Valle’s

The Portland Maine History Facebook page has posted a history of Valle’s steak house that was founded in Portland and its peak had locations all throughout New England.

Valle’s Steak House began as a 12 seat café in Portland, Maine in 1933, owned by Donald Valle who was born in Lettomanopello, Italy in 1908 and immigrated to the United States in 1912 at the age of four; he married Sue Crone and they had two children Richard and Judith. Before Woodford’s Corner, Valle’s was at 551 Congress Street, but not sure if that was the original location…

Rum Diaries

The October issue of Portland Magazine includes a feature article on the history of the rum industry in Maine.

The rough and rowdy history of Maine rum turned violent in the 1850s, as under the growing temperance movement spearheaded by mayor Neal Dow, ‘the Napoleon of Temperance,’ alcohol production and sale of liquor was prohibited. However, it was discovered four years after the passage of the law that Dow himself was keeping large stocks of brandy set aside for ‘medicinal’ purposes–necessary to maintain the temperaments of solid, respectable citizens, of course. But for the working population of the city, alcohol was often their only escape, and many of the rioters decried Dow’s attack on what they viewed as their culture.

Ned Wight from New England Distilling in Portland was interviewed for the article.

Ned Wight, whose Eight Bells Rum hit shelves in September, agrees that it’s not all about the sea. Much of the rum produced in Maine was likely produced in stills in the back of public houses, produced not for bottling and off-site consumption but to be drunk on the premises by the patrons. “To me, that’s the real essence of Maine’s connection to rum, less than sailing or piracy.

Portland’s Restaurant History

For anyone interested in the history of Portland’s restaurant scene (that’s all of us, right?), Epicuranoid has published a very interesting history of Portland’s restaurants in the 70’s and 80’s.

Long before The Old Port renaissance, Portland had a hopping restaurant scene.  There was a famous French restaurant named Marcel’s.  Several good steak houses like John Martin’s Art Gallery (where Asylum is now) and many restaurants that did all kinds of seafood baked, broiled & fried.  However, In the time before The Old Port boomed, the last great features of Portland’s restaurant landscape were Italian.  I refer to it as the old Italian guard because much like Boston’s North End today, the Italian restaurants dominated.   Only DiMillo’s was actually in the area we call The Old Port, but the city was littered with the likes of Verillo’s, The Sportsman’s Grill, The Roma, The Village Cafe, Maria’s and my old favorite, Giobbi’s.

If that’s wet your appetite for Portland food history, take a look at the restaurant timeline here on PFM.