Thomas and Joyce Dresser’s new book, “A Culinary History of Martha’s Vineyard,” is a compact sweep that’s sure to awaken your taste buds. With only 190 pages, the Dressers cover a lot of territory with a smorgasbord of history, anecdotes, and tempting recipes. They also celebrate the diversity of cultural cuisines brought here from near and far.
The first chapter logically starts with the fare of the Island’s first inhabitants. We learn about hunting, foraging, farming, and fishing by the People of the First Light, the Wampanoags, who settled the Vineyard before it became an island about 3000 BC.
The “Colonial Cuisine” chapter is chocked full of fun information. Taverns for travelers sprang up here in the mid-17 th century. “They were quite common, ordinary if you will. In fact, a tavern was referred to as ‘ordinary’ in colonial America.” Some of the earliest Vineyard keepers bear the names of Tiltons, Cottles, and Mayhews.
For those on the go, the original sandwiches were the original fast foods, as were small handheld pies similar to the ones available today at the Orange Peel Bakery. These pies, filled with fruit, recall mince pies of yesteryear.
We learn, too, about preserving methods such as potting meats, which were boiled or baked until tender, pounded into a paste to which spices and fat were added, and then poured into an earthenware jar topped with melted butter and sealed with melted fat.
There is also information about fare on whaling ships, including the hardtack baked on Island, “enticingly” made of flour, water, and salt into hard biscuits. The ever-industrious Dr. Daniel Fisher set up a hardtack bakery on his wharf in Edgartown in the mid-1800s in what is now the Old Sculpin Gallery. He also built a roadway — now named for him, linking nine miles of cart roads from West Tisbury, where he hired farmers to grow wheat, to his mill in Edgartown.
Portuguese cuisine first migrated to the island with the sailors who joined the whaleships in the 1700s through the first half of the 1800s that set off from Edgartown and stopped in the Azores or Cape Verde Islands to pick up crew. Some retired on the Vineyard, bringing a Mediterranean diet, including linguica, chorizo sausage, and Portuguese sweet bread.
Noting that a significant Black population increased on the Island around 1900, the book highlights several Black chefs, including Chef Deon Thomas at the VFW and Chef Winston Christie, who runs Winston’s Kitchen and Linda Jean’s. Each offers Caribbean cuisine and soul food.
These are just two of the many individuals the Dressers highlight throughout the book.
Tom tells me, “When Joyce interviewed and wrote about the chefs and personnel at various restaurants, we realized this was the essence of the book: Islanders preparing food for all of us. These stories are unique, personal, and memorable.”
We also read about many establishments. There is an entire chapter about 24 bygone eateries and another on long-standing historic restaurants. Did you know that Giordano’s Italian American Restaurant, which opened in 1930, is the longest-running family-owned establishment on Island? How about that John F. Kennedy showed up as a teenager in 1941 with his friends at the Ocean View House, established in 1893, after a rough crossing of the Vineyard Sound. The boys were provided hot showers and dry clothes by staff who little suspected they were helping out the future president.
The Scottish Bakehouse is aptly named for its Scottish origins, when, in 1961, Isabella Maxwell White emigrated from Pebbleshire, Scotland. “She apparently won the hearts of Islanders not only with her shortbread and kidney pies, but also with her sense of humor, Yorkshire terriers, and her tradition of making holiday meals for the home-bound elderly on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.”
Who wouldn’t love a chapter devoted to sweets, with background information on Chilmark Chocolates, Darling’s, Murdick’s Fudge, and Salt Rock Chocolates? But the story that caught my eye was about the fudge maker, Miss Priscilla Hancock, selling the confection to hordes at her West Tisbury farm. The book includes her chocolate nut fudge recipe:
Chocolate Nut Fudge
4 cups granulated sugar
1 ½ tsp. salt
1 ½ cups light cream
2 Tbsp. corn syrup
6 squares Baker’s unsweetened chocolate
5 to 6 Tbsp. butter
2 tsp. vanilla
1 ½ to 2 cups coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans
Bring sugar, salt, cream, and corn syrup to the boiling point, cook slowly for several minutes, then add chocolate. Reduce heat and cook without stirring to soft ball stage, or if using a thermometer, to 243 ℉. Add butter and vanilla to the mixture before it becomes lukewarm, beating to the creamy stage. Finally, add nuts. Makes four pounds.
The Dressers cover important aspects of the Island’s commitment to sustainable living, including the West Tisbury Farmers Market, Island Grown Initiative, farms such as Mermaid Farm and Morning Glory Farm, and foraging and gleaning programs. They also shine a light on the disconnect between the Vineyard as a playground for the rich and famous and our high degree of need.
We read that since the Food Pantry merged with IGI, there are now 4,200 people registered to receive food at the Pantry, which is 20 percent of the Island’s population.
Retired IGI executive director Rebecca Haag shares the imperative sentiment about what sustains us all and is at the heart of the multi-faceted book: “Food is more than just nutrition. It is also love; it is family; it is a community; it is tradition and history. Food is related to people feeling connected and loved.”
“A Culinary History of Martha’s Vineyard” by Thomas Dresser and Joyce Dresser. The History Press, $24.99. Available at Phillips Hardware, Off Main, the Campground Museum, Bunch of Grapes, and Edgartown Books.
