The Martha’s Vineyard Cook Book (Harper & Row, 1971), written by Louise Tate King and Jeanne Stewart Wexler, is a book I treasure. Focused mainly on dishes the writers and their friends made at home, the recipes reflect what is best about eating here – food made with local ingredients, carefully but straightforwardly prepared. But the book does more than catalogue bass and blueberry preparations. It sketches a beautiful portrait of this place and its people.
Among my favorite chapters are “Portuguese Cookery” and “The Old Timers” because they meld cooking and history. Alongside recipes for caldo verde (potato and kale soup) and Portuguese cornbread are several featuring salt cod, a favorite ingredient of mine – and, it turns out, a food long tied to the Island.
King and Wexler point out that the Portuguese names of DeBettencourt, Medeiros, and Sylva are common on Vineyard mailboxes. Many of these families trace lineage to sailors from the Azores and Cape Verde recruited to work on whale ships. Because of hard times at home, the men settled in southern New England and on Martha’s Vineyard.
Immigration continued even after the whaling industry foundered. Approximately 7,000 Portuguese people arrived on the Island in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, according to a study conducted by the Dukes County Historical Society (now the Martha’s Vineyard Museum).
The Portuguese built lives much like those they had left behind: they farmed, fished, and hunted, adapting to this place. But they also left a culinary mark. “All the grocers stock tasty linguiça and chorizo sausages and the Portuguese bakery in Oak Bluffs turns out a delicious massa sovada, the traditional sweet bread,” wrote King and Wexler.
Among the preferences they brought with them was a taste for bacalhau (salt cod). Originally developed as a method of preservation, salting gives cod a concentrated, clean flavor and a firm, meaty texture that the Portuguese came to love – so much, it is said, that today you can try a new Portuguese recipe for it every day of the year.
This enthusiasm dates to the sixteenth century, when demand for cod drew fishermen to Newfoundland. Accustomed to preserving their northern catch by air-drying – they made what is now called “stockfish,” using a technique from the Vikings – fishermen turned to salting when Newfoundland’s humid climate made air-drying impractical.
New Englanders also relied on salt to preserve their food at this time, and by the early-nineteenth century salt production had become among the most important industries on Martha’s Vineyard. Salt was used to preserve the once locally plentiful cod and to produce a major export. Top-quality salt cod was sold in Europe, and lower-quality fish was sent to the Caribbean and South America, where plantation owners preferred to feed enslaved people cheap preserved seafood rather than dedicate acreage to nourishing their workforces.
Brazil, a Portuguese colony, was home to enormous forced-labor sugar plantations from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries and became a huge market for subpar salt cod. Initially eaten there by those who couldn’t afford anything else, over the years a devotion to salt cod spread (and the quality of imports improved).
These days salt cod is revered in Brazil and in Europe. Bacalhoada (a layered bake of fish, peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes garnished with olives and hard-cooked eggs) is typically found on Christmas and Easter tables in Brazil. In Italy, baccalà is also a traditional part of the Christmas Eve feast. Bacalhau à brás (salt cod, onions, and matchstick fries bound with softly scrambled eggs) is a comforting everyday dish that is the most famous of the vast Portuguese canon. Brandade de morue (salt cod whipped with olive oil, garlic, potatoes, and cream) is a renowned French dish. And Spaniards are famous for bacalao a la vizcaina (fish cooked with tomatoes, onions, peppers, and garlic).
Salt cod is a less common ingredient today in the United States, but it is easy to find on the Island. It is sold in boxes at Cronig’s Market and available at Vineyard Grocer in Vineyard Haven. I prefer to buy whole fillets. I look for pearly white meat and avoid fish that is discolored. I like to buy from a dealer who sells a lot of the product, such as the Portugalia Marketplace in Fall River. You can make the trip off-Island or purchase online at portugaliamarketplace.com.
I first fell for salt cod a long time ago over a plate of accra (salt cod fritters) at an airport in the French Caribbean. I have been making them for friends, refining my own recipe ever since. They are the ideal hors d’oeuvre, equally right with a glass of beer or champagne. I’ve also been making salt cod and tomato soup for ages, as well as a warm potato and salt cod salad. These easy recipes are a reflection of my experiences and history. But I was delighted to open my mother’s copy of The Martha’s Vineyard Cook Book – still available today – and learn that salt cod connects me to generations of Island neighbors.
The following recipes were published with this story:
