Jane Stern - Durgin-Park Cookbook: Classic Yankee Cooking in the Shadow of Faneuil Hall

THE
DURGIN-PARK
COOKBOOK

THE
DURGIN-PARK
COOKBOOK

CLASSIC YANKEE COOKING
IN THE SHADOW OF FANEUIL HALL

JANE & MICHAEL STERN

Copyright 2002 by Jane & Michael Stern

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotation in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published by Rutledge Hill Press, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, Tennessee, 37214.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stern, Jane.

The Durgin-Park cookbook / Jane & Michael Stern.

p. cm.

ISBN 1-40160-028-X

1. Cookery, AmericanNew England style. 2. Durgin-Park (Restaurant) I. Stern, Michael, 1946- II. Title.

TX715.2.N48 S745 2002

641.5974--dc21

2002011873

Printed in the United States of America

02 03 04 05 065 4 3 2 1

Dedicated to
BERNICE & DAVID SCHERB

CONTENTS

THE DURGIN WAY

S INCE 1972, when our family picked up the torch from Jim Hallett, owner for over fifty years, we have carried the tradition started in 1826: simple Yankee fare made with the finest ingredients, prepared fresh daily in our kitchens. These characteristics have maintained the restaurants landmark status around the globe. Our motto Your Grandfather and Perhaps Your Great-Grandfather Dined with Us Too, speaks to the loyalty of our customers across many generations. That loyalty is the result of a commitment of the owners and staff, the quality of the product, and the welcoming atmosphere of the restaurant. We appreciate our customers who dine at the restaurant time and time again. They are the men and women who know the staff by name and the menu by heart. Repeatedly, they have expressed gratitude that the dcor and menu have remained unchanged over the years. Their loyalty contributes to the fabric of this very special restaurant.

The following stories, recipes, and photos will show you some of the men and women who have helped to make Durgin-Park the success that it is. Much of our reputation can be attributed to these people for the hard work, dedication, and personality that they bring to our restaurant. The casual, no-frills atmosphere, the family-style seating, the action in the kitchen, and the general hustle and bustle of the place make it a special place to be. We are proud of the fact that we have remained a unique restaurant. We celebrate this individuality and look forward to serving many generations to come.

As native Bostonians we welcome our patrons from lands near and far to experience our traditions, keeping in mind another Durgin-Park motto: There Is No Place Like This Place So This Must Be The Place.

THE KELLEY & SOLIMANDO FAMILIES

S EANA KELLEY and Suzanne Kelley, as well as chef Tommy Ryan, have helped us see beyond the institution that is Durgin-Park to the personality of the restaurant that they so expertly nurture and maintain. We thank them for their hospitality in Boston, as well as for sharing with us their stories, their expertise, and their enthusiasm.

Whenever we go anywhere to eat, we take with us our virtual companions at www.roadfood.comSteve Rushmore Sr. and Stephen Rushmore, Cindy Keuchle, and Marc Brunogood dining partners whose enthusiasm for Roadfood never flags.

Our own passion for Roadfood has been immeasurably enhanced by having this opportunity to create a series of cookbooks from Americas most beloved restaurants, with Durgin-Park as our worthy emissary of classic Yankee cooking. Larry Stone, Geoff Stone, Bryan Curtis, and Roger Waynick are ever-present reminders that this book came into being because Durgin-Park is so deserving of it. Their passion makes publishing feel like a labor of love.

As always, it is with pleasure that we thank agent Doe Coover for her tireless work on our behalf, as well as Jean Wagner, Mary Ann Rudolph, and Ned Schankman for making it possible for us to travel in confidence that alls well at home.

I F BOSTON IS the cradle of the republic, Durgin-Park is its commissary. The restaurant that indisputably boasts Established Before You Were Born came into existence a few decades before the Boston Tea Party as a place where the men who sold meat and produce in the citys Faneuil Hall Market could have a place to sit down and have their morning meal. Since the Civil War, just three families have owned it. The current chef, Tommy Ryan, has run the kitchen for more than forty years; before him, Edward Babe Hallett was chef for half a century. At Durgin-Park, tradition reigns.

Not everything about it is vintage. Sandwiches were added to the lunch menu in 2001, and pasta appeared a few years earlier for Boston Marathoners who needed to carbo-load. But the reason most people come to Durgin-Park is to have a time-honored, true-Yankee meal. When you sit down at a red-checked tablecloth in this boisterous eating hall, you fork into plates of such sturdy old-time delights as potted beef with onions, hand-patted fish cakes, broiled schrod, and oyster stew. Your meal starts with blocks of hot corn bread and creamy chowder; you can accompany immense slabs of prime rib with some of the planets most delicious mashed potatoes; and you can top it all off with apple pandowdy or strawberry shortcake on a baking powder biscuit.

Durgin-Park sets the standard for Yankee cookery. Its stone-crock Boston baked beans and Indian pudding are definitive; the balance of its broad menuAtlantic seafood and mighty cuts of beefis timeless. And yet, for all its classicism, this is one of the most eccentric restaurants you will ever experience. Even its shape is unique and antiquateda vertical space four stories above street level. The dining area is situated high above the sidewalk up a long flight of stairs. Cooked entres are elevatored down via dumbwaiter from the third-floor kitchen to the waiters station in the second-floor dining room. And if you think getting hundreds of hot plates from the third to the second floor during the busy supper hour is tricky, you should see the ancient rope-and-pulley system that is used to hoist great tubs of groceries up from the street into the upstairs kitchen early each morning. (On the floor above the kitchen is the house laundry and above that, the restaurants offices.)

Before you eat at Durgin-Park, chances are good you will have to wait in line at the bottom of the stairs; and when space becomes available, you can look forward to a seat at a long table, elbow-to-elbow with strangers. Expect your waitress not to courteously introduce herself by name or to kindly inquire as to your well-being this fine day. Brusque service is part of the Durgin-Park package, and while todays wait-staff no longer offers what a headline writer once called service with a sneer, neither do any of the veterans go out of their way to pretend that making and serving these heavy plates of food is anything but hard work.

In the kitchen you see just how much effort goes into Durgin-Parks menu. Everything is made from scratch right here, every day, most of it the very old-fashioned way. Dissatisfied with how the automatic peeler leaves flecks of skin on potatoes, Tommy Ryan has members of the staff inspect each spud and remove any imperfections before they are mashed. Likewise, carrots are peeled by hand with the same sort of little metal grater you might have at home. The son of a butcher who used to work in Faneuil Hall, Tommy is one of the few chefs who still buys swinging beeflarge sections of cow to which he applies band saw and knife to cut steaks and chops just the way he knows theyre supposed to be. Each fish cake this kitchen servesand it serves plenty, especially on the side of Boston baked beansis hand-fashioned; corned beef is corned on-premises; apples are peeled one by one in an old hand-cranked gadget, then made into applesauce; and gravy for turkey dinner comes from a roux that is whisked constantly until thick and mahogany brown.