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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (June 22, 2017)
12 // COASTWEEKEND.COM Coast Weekend’s local restaurant review James Beard, Gearhart legend sun peaking through the trees and the sound of surf in the distance, it’s not hard to see why. MOUTH@COASTWEEKEND.COM Beard, along with his fam- ily and neighbors, had regular chef friend gave me rather picnics on the beach. They swam, loose directions to find the clammed and raked crabs from Gearhart cottage where the tide pools. They explored the James Beard spent summers as a rivers and forest, caught crawfish child. and picked buckets full of berries. I knew I was close, but I They returned home to host regular couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I asked a woman who was out gar- lunches and dinner parties — hun- dreds of them. dening if she could In Beard’s auto- help. Pointing biography, “De- around the corner, lights and Prejudic- down E Street, she es,” memories are knew exactly the traced back through place. food. A momma’s “James Beard is boy, Beard paid a Gearhart legend,” keen attention she said. and found kinship And while in the reverent others of great cooking of his stal- fame and note have wart, independent decamped to the mother. Communi- idyllic enclave, ty gathered around perhaps none their table, their have been greater fires on the beach. ambassadors for And the North James Andrew Beard the place than Coast provided an Beard. The titanic abundance to share. and influential gourmand, critic, “(W)hat a treasure house of writer, teacher and socialite was good food this part of the world effusive when it came not only to Gearhart’s “isolated charm,” where was for us!” Beard wrote in ‘De- lights and Prejudices.’ “The sandy “commercial life has been kept at a minimum,” but the bounty of the soil was perfection for vegetables and small fruits; the evening dew North Coast. and the temperate climate were Having explored high cuisine good for growing and ripening. in Europe, and treated as royalty The nearby waters provided an in the best restaurants of New inexhaustible supply of fish.” York City — keeping a table at “The Pacific’s greatest blessing, the storied Four Seasons — Beard though, was the Dungeness crab, to remarked that “those busy days on my mind unequaled by anything in the Oregon Coast left their mark the shellfish world,” Beard wrote. on me and no place on earth has “I will match a good Dungeness done as much to influence my against the best lobster in America professional life.” and against the best langouste in Standing in front of the cot- Europe.” (Langouste is a spiny tage — built in 1910, when Beard lobster.) would’ve been just 7 — with the Story by THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA A PHOTO BY THE MOUTH James Beard’s childhood cottage in Gearhart Fresh, never frozen, boiled crab, Beard believed, if allowed to cool and eaten with “rich home- made mayonnaise, good bread and butter, and beer or a very light white wine” yields a meal “that the gods intended only for the pure in palate.” Salmon, too, was a staple in Gearhart, delivered the day it was caught. Beard and his mother were particularly fond of the cheeks. At the time an afterthought often tossed out with the heads, the fatty, rich cheeks would later become a delicacy as “scarce as white caviar and nearly as expensive.” As for the rest of the salmon, it was pre- pared just about every which way: poached, baked, pickled, grilled and smoked. The Beards cooked it as natives had before them: over an open flame, splayed on forked branches of spirea that don’t burn. Beard rejoiced in sturgeon, crawfish, trout and “mussels by the ton.” Oysters were sautéed in butter, sometimes lightly breaded, just cooked warm through. Razor clams were fried for breakfast, scalloped and souffléd. Of the “su- perb” razors, which he wrote have “a rich flavor, somewhat akin to scallops, and a delicacy of texture that is different from any other clam I know,” Beard declared he was “certain that if the razor clam existed in France, the recipes for them would be classic.” “It’s no wonder we hardly ever touched meat,” Beard wrote of his summers in Gearhart. “Save for picnics and occasional dinners, we existed almost entirely on the riches of the rivers and the sea.” There were fruits and vegeta- bles, too, of course, like strawber- ries, huckleberries and blackber- ries, as well peas from a neighbor’s garden that were “even better than the petits pois of France.” In “Delights and Prejudices” Beard includes the recipes of his stories, including those from his mother as well as other Gearhart residents, friends of the family. You’ll find dishes like clam fritters, huckleberry cake, Mother’s Clam Soufflé, Gravad Lax and Grammie Hamblet’s Deviled Crab. Beard’s recipes are remarkable for their simplicity. Most are but a paragraph long and include only a handful of ingredients. While some are surely more difficult than such brevity suggests, many appear quite approachable. Indeed, Beard’s cooking was largely ele- mental, trusting that fresh, fine — and yes, local — ingredients would carry the day. Occasionally, the Beards were invited to dine out, though his mother demurred, preferring her own fresh cooking to the “horrible stuff out of jars and cans” from nearby restaurants that she said left her with indigestion. And while Beard continued to visit his beloved Gearhart and the North Coast almost until his death in 1985, only toward the end, in the early 80s, would he discover a restaurant that truly satisfied his taste, paying proper homage to the abundant bounty of the region. It was The Ark — later Nancy & Jimella’s Cafe & Cocktails. This is the first in an inter- mittent series on James Beard, exploring his history and influence in the region. CW
