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New England Maritime Foodways

Specialised

The GULF OF MAINE is warming faster than almost any other body of water measured, which is the central fact of this foodway now. COD: the fishery that drew Europeans before settlement, was fished to collapse, and remains under severe restriction — the "sacred cod" is a monument to something largely gone. LOBSTER: ⚠ POOR PEOPLE’S FOOD AND PRISONERS’ FOOD INTO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, so plentiful it was used as fertiliser and as indentured servants’ rations, and only became a luxury with rail transport and canning; Maine now lands the great majority of the US catch, and the stock is moving north. Also: CLAMS — quahog, littleneck, cherrystone, steamer — with the fried clam credited to Essex, Massachusetts in 1916; oysters from Wellfleet and Duxbury; scallops from New Bedford, the highest-value fishing port in the country; haddock, herring, mackerel; and the CLAMBAKE, a pit lined with hot stones and rockweed, of documented Indigenous descent.

Atlas — where and when

Where in the world

Communities and languages

Languages: English

What is recorded

  • The Gulf of Maine is documented as warming faster than most of the world ocean. Lobster was low-status food into the nineteenth century, used as fertiliser and as rations for prisoners and indentured servants, becoming a luxury with rail transport and canning; Maine now lands the great majority of the United States catch and the stock is shifting northward. The fried clam is credited to Essex, Massachusetts in 1916. New Bedford is documented as the highest-value fishing port in the United States. The clambake descends from documented Indigenous stone-pit shellfish roasting. documented
  • The fried clam is credited to Essex, Massachusetts. documented
  • Groundfish stocks in the Gulf of Maine collapse and come under severe restriction; the Gulf warms faster than most of the world ocean. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

  • originates from Indigenous New England Foodways documented

    The clambake descends from the documented Indigenous practice of roasting shellfish in a stone-lined pit under seaweed.

Recipes

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