Oyster Stew

The one long time standing Christmas Eve tradition for my family is clam chowder. Which in it's way is the bastardization of the long time standing Irish-American tradition of oyster stew. My mother, born and raised in northern Michigan (not the U.P. thank goodness, they're irredeemably too Canadian in nature) was never much of an adventurous eater, probably because her mother wasn't an adventurous cook. My father was a world traveler, i.e. an army brat. Born in France and spent his childhood on bases in Germany, he was something special and exciting  to blow into the one horse town in their high school years.

Entering the marriage they both brought their own traditions and ideas. One tradition was oyster stew. My father's mother couldn't stand the stuff, yet every Christmas ever she made it for the kids because that was a tradition from their Fathers family. Though my Grandmother and Grandfather were divorced by the time she moved the kids back to the town she grew up in. not wanting to deprive the children of anything least of all a connection to their fathers family she made the stew every Christmas no matter how much she personally disliked the taste and texture of oysters (and they say they're and aphrodisiac, ha). My mother wasn't much different. She couldn't stand the taste and texture of oysters and unlike my Grandmother, my mom had not quandary in ixnay-ing that traditions. Being the ever accommodation woman she is however she didn't eliminate the tradition all together, just modified it. Instead of oyster stew we have clam chowder. This year for the first time in almost a decade we're letting her make it too.

My mother bless her heart is where I inherited my blonde genes from. Not the ones that gave me the strawberry blonde hair I have, no those are from my father's side, I'm talking about the ones that make me do stupid stuff every once in a while. A number of years ago, the last Christmas Eve we ever let my mother make the clam chowder unsupervised, we sat down  to dinner giant trough sized bowls to better gorge ourselves on chowder and oyster crackers. not being catholic we all had absolutely no reservations about being completely and utterly gluttonous on this blessed Christmas Eve. Dishing up all around the table we loaded out bowls with chowder and filled our plates with crackers, bowed our heads and prayed. As we all said Amen our hands were itching to snatch up our spoons, fasting all day in anticipation of the slow cooking chowder, we were ravenous.

Bringing the spoon of tasty sea food to our lips we were bursting with excitement of the much anticipated Christmas Eve Chowder. as a group we swallowed that first spoonful and as a group we all cringed. The taste. The sickly sweet taste, was too much. Something was seriously wrong, no amazing sea food chowder should taste like Easter bunny threw up in it. In the years since that inedible chowder we told and retold the story not with resentment or malice but with love and amusement at my mothers accidental attempt to thicken the chowder with powdered sugar instead of flour. That was also the year my brother pulled all of the baking goods jars out of the pantry to label them. so no one else would grab the glass jar filled with a white powdery substance and think it was flour when in fact it was sugar, or vise versa.

The Christmas Eve Oyster Stew tradition is believed to have originated with the Irish emigrants. The Irish coming to America to escape the potato famine traditionally made a ling fish stew. On arriving however they  found that there was no eel like, member of the cod family to be found off our shores so they subsequently substituted oysters for the ling since the oysters were the closest thing in way of taste available here in America. That is how we Americans acquired the tradition of oyster stew, for us it was from my Father's Grandmother (on his Dad's side), who was good Irish-American stock through and through.

Ling Fish

Happy Christmas Eve