by Deb Powers
St. Patrick's Day fell on a Friday again this year - a Friday in Lent - so it came as no surprise when my mother called me early that morning to tell me that the Pope had issued a dispensation for Catholics worldwide: we could eat meat this Lenten Friday. Corned beef and cabbage would be on the table. And I did make it... but I found myself remembering my childhood Fridays.
Growing up with a devout Italian grandmother meant that those Catholic traditions were not only observed, they were studied with a gimlet eyed intensity most reserve for life or death situations. As well they should be! Eating meat on a Friday was a sin.. it was more than life or death - it was a matter of putting your immortal soul in peril! That meant that throughout the year, Friday was the day for tuna casserole, fish sticks, fish cakes, spaghetti alio e olio (with garlic and anchovy oil) - or on a very good week, thick slabs of fresh-caught haddock, deep fried and steaming next to a pile of Nana's hand-cut, home-made french fries. Good Friday called for a different kind of seafood though - the New England standby known her in the U.S. as 'salt cod'. In Nana's tongue it was bacalao, and even if we all hated it, it was the traditional way to break the Good Friday fast.
These days, you buy bacalao in little wooden crates the size of of a sardine tin, or wrapped plastic and styrofoam packages. Even then, in the early sixties in the North End, few people had the patience to go through the soaking and cleaning and soaking and draining and soaking and boiling that it takes to make bacalao palatable. Just for them, during Holy Week North End fishmongers laid out their dried salt cod in wooden tubs to soak, rinsing and draining the barrels several times a day. By the time Thursday came, the fish had lost its wooden stiffness and was ready to soak one last time before being cooked up in a pot with potatoes and onions.
My grandmother did not believe in shortcuts. When she brought home a slab of bacalao on Monday of Holy week it was a whole side of dried salt cod, stiff as a board and impossible to fit in her wooden tub. Too thick to break, and to tough to cut with a kitchen knife, the bacalao suffered the indignity of being sawed into pieces with the saw she'd used all through the winter to saw firewood, then tossed into a washtub to soak for days. It sat in the corner of the kitchen, covered with a cloth to keep out the dust when she swept the floor. Three or four times a day, she hefted the heavy tub to pour the water off into the sink, letting the salt drain away as she refilled the bucket again with fresh water and set it back in the corner. For the entire week before Easter, the kitchen stank of brine and fish - the smell, I was certain - of penitence and sorrow.
By Thursday the bacalao was ready to cook, softened to pliability that allowed it to be forced into the enormous stewpot on the old gas stove. It had been drained and rinsed one last time, the slightly salted rinse water declared to be suitable, then put on a slow fire to simmer for the day with onions and garlic. In the late afternoon, Nana would add the potatoes and let it continue to simmer for another hour before she finally added the stewed tomatoes and covered the pot to stand overnight.
The end result was a fishy tasting slurry, salted beyond comprehension despite the days of soaking and rinsing. Orange and oily, it could be spread on thick slabs of Italian bread, or spooned over polenta, or stirred into hot, plain spaghetti. There is not now - nor has there ever been - anything in the world that tasted like it. It tasted like Lent.
And it was the taste I found myself craving that Friday St. Patrick's Day in Lent when my mother said that the Pope had continued the tradition of offering a dispensation for Catholics so that they could eat corned beef and cabbage. Perhaps after years of drifting, I'm beginning to come full circle. I want my traditions back. I want my bacalao.
