Some find it ironic that Rochester, the only town in the competition without a coastline, once again took the first and second place awards in the Public Safety category for best chowder during the Mattapoisett Firefighters Association’s 3^rd Annual Chowder Cook-Off. Although this year the Rochester Fire Department stole first place from last year’s winner Andrew Daniel, Rochester’s facilities director, the rather playful competition between the two departments remains friendly.

Local chowder lovers swarmed the Mattapoisett Knights of Columbus grounds on Saturday, September 16, to enjoy samples of some of the area’s most carefully crafted chowders that are made by eager local public safety employees vying for the coveted judges’ first place and “People’s Choice” awards, which come with a plaque and, most importantly, the undisputable right to brag.

Rochester Fire is known for its rich, creamy clam chowder recipe concocted by Albert Weigal and topped with a single fried clam belly. Or was that crowning fried clam actually Andrew Daniel’s idea?

Daniel said three years ago when the competition started, he and the Rochester fire crew were thinking about teaming up together and Daniel himself came up with the idea of making the chowder more memorable by topping it off with a freshly fried clam. The idea worked, and as Daniel and Rochester Fire went their own ways with their own chowders, both last year topped off their chowders with fried clams – leading to Daniel taking first and Rochester Fire, second.

This year, though, as he does each year, Daniel changed things up with another recipe – this year offering his newer “Crustacean N’ Corn Chowder,” with crab, shrimp, and lobster with roasted corn, fire roasted red peppers, “and a sweet cream sherry finish.” And this time, instead of topping his chowder with fried clams, he used small fried shrimps.

“I do something different every year,” said Daniel who in addition to winning first place last year, won second place the first year.

Daniel had the feeling that Rochester Fire could take back first place this year, which he accurately predicted, saying, “The Fire Department is gonna win. They’re more popular. And rightfully so! I’m just the town carpenter and they’re gonna be the ones saving you!”

Marion Harbormaster Isaac Perry and his wife Karen were fervently serving up their newer clam chowder recipe they decided to alter after not placing last year.

“The entire year!” answered Karen when asked how long the couple had been working on a new recipe. Although it was all her, she implied, saying as she squinted at her husband, “Food service is not in his blood.” The secret to her rich, smooth, savory chowder was the infused Irish butter – which landed them the third place award.

The Wareham Harbormaster decided to join in the fun this year with his first clam chowder entry. And although he didn’t place, his creamy clam chowder was hot, fresh, loaded with potatoes softened to perfection, and of course, the most important part, according to Harbormaster Gary Buckminster, the quahogs he and Assistant Harbormaster Jamie McIntire dug themselves that morning from Onset Harbor.

“They don’t even have quahogs in Rochester,” said Buckminster, eyeballing the competition from across the way. Buckminster described his chowder recipe as basic, simple, and without all the added flavorings. “And we don’t have to fluff our stuff up with fried clams on top!” (Oh, snap). “We love Rochester,” said Buckminster with redemption.

A couple of booths over, Fairhaven Harbormaster Tim Cox and his friend Sharon DeCosta didn’t change a thing about DeCosta’s grandmother’s chowder recipe that she swears by. Paul Andrews with the Mattapoisett Police stands by his recipe as well, not changing anything from last year, keeping with the “basic” broth that lets the fresh clams speak for themselves.

Marion Fire Assistant Chief Allen Denham served a more thickly-based chowder, saying last year’s thinner, more brothy chowder wasn’t as popular with the crowd. Next booth over, Brian Daniel with the Fairhaven Fire Department said he also went thicker and creamier this year. “Three years ago I made it like the way I like it at home.” But if you want that prize, he conceded, the people want chowder they can chew.

Although technically the public safety contestants are “amateurs,” we have to hand it to them – many of them were as good, if not better, than the chowders of the professional establishment competition.

Rochester Fire also received the coveted “People’s Choice” award.

“Well,” said Daniel, “I’m just going to have to up our game for next year.”

In the professional establishment category, Lindsey’s of Wareham won first place for its seafood bisque, Rasputin’s of Fairhaven took second, and The Stowaway in Mattapoisett took third with its “bacon cheeseburger” chowder. The Lebanese Kitchen of Mattapoisett, which took first place in the cook-off last year, won the People’s Choice award a second year in a row.

Proceeds from the chowder cook-off go towards lifesaving equipment not otherwise included in the budget.

By Jean Perry

When you are a child, the world can be a frightening place, especially if enhanced by old-fashioned parenting that employs fear to control a child’s behavior. My mother was a master at fear tactics, bless her soul. I, her daughter, lived in fear.

Once, Ma told me to stop sucking my thumb because it would rot and end up looking like Uncle Johnny’s finger. One of my uncle’s index fingers had been injured and the nail grew from the shortened digit like an ugly yellow claw, thick and pointed. I was petrified that would happen to me. And every morning when I awakened to find my thumb stuck deep inside my mouth, panic would eject me from my blankets. What relief to see my thumb had not become disfigured during the night, especially after reciting that bedtime prayer “…if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take…” I was alive and my thumb was intact.

As a child, I was always falling down. Maybe I was just a clumsy kid, or maybe I was running too fast for my chubby little stumps. Whatever the cause, my knees were in a perpetual state of scabbing over. I should be grateful that my mother likened her first aid skills to that of a “practical nurse” – but I wasn’t.

How clearly it comes back to me – sitting on the pantry counter where Ma would have plopped me in order to examine my fresh wounds. Then out would come the peroxide, mecuricome, alcohol, gauze, and thick white adhesive tape. The command was always, “You better hold still or else!” Then she’d go to work making sure the cuts were impeccably clean. Suffice to say I considered it torture, though I never developed impetigo, which, of course, she always threatened I’d develop and then my legs would fall off.

Going to school had its own set of things to worry about, not the least of which was “cooties.”

Cooties, those tiny little lice that infested the heads of children, were to be feared. We all knew that only dirty kids got cooties. But I wondered, how did you tell if a kid wasn’t clean? Did you tell by how grubby their hands were? If that were the yardstick, then I’d fall into the dirty category. Or, could you tell by how messy their hair was? My hair was often a mess. Did that make me dirty and susceptible to cooties? The teachers at school added to our fears.

We were instructed from the first day of first grade never to wear other children’s hats or coats, not to let our heads touch one another, and absolutely not to share combs. Imagine my surprise when after dutifully adhering to all those warnings, I somehow got cooties anyway.

As my head hung over the claw foot tub, Ma poured hot water containing some evil smelling toxins into my long hair instructing me to “try not to breath,” thus ensuring that the cooties would be killed while my lungs would be spared. With my head wrapped in clean rags generally used to mop the floors, I sat on a stool crying my eyes out because I couldn’t return to school for seven days, days during which I’d endure more poisonous treatments.

When I did return to school, I was sure everyone knew why I had been absent. I felt their eyes staring at my long braids. But other kids suffered greater embarrassment. Boys returned to class with heads shaved and little girls who once skipped across the playground with ribbons bobbing in long hair now wore a short Dutch-boy cut.

But probably the worst thing a little child had to suffer through by far was visits to the dentist.

By the time I was fifteen, all my molars sported fillings. That means I spent a great deal of time having my teeth attended to by … dramatic music … The Dentist.

The dental chair was a medieval torture device. Climbing into that hard leather monster with huge drills dangling around one’s little head made palms sweat and hearts pound. “Open wide,” the dentist would command while holding what can only be described as a hook from hell. He’d probe the depths of my mouth like he was digging for clams.

His forays produced results as he announced the extent of my decay, “One will have to come out.” The fight or flight response had to be suppressed. Instead I prayed, “Dear God, make the dentist die right now!” That’s when I knew God only heard the prayers of children whose teeth were perfect – the dentist kept on breathing.

That night, I was allowed to forego the planned supper of liver and onions – evidence that there was some benefit to having teeth pulled, I surmised. The ice cubes Ma had made were all mine, she said.

As I sat on the sofa that day sucking on ice, a tremendous sense of relief washed over me as I thought, “I’m still alive!” Unfortunately, that was followed with dread that my thumb might still be destroyed that night as I slept, or that I’d die during the night and God would take my soul. Amen. Now, no wonder I have insomnia.

By Marilou Newell