Skewered in New Bedford
My friends: Mark this down for a side trip next summer, if you happen to be in New England in August. You want to try and get to the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament in the Madeiran section of New Bedford, Mass. I went this weekend with my brothers -- our father, Joe Rodricks, was born Jose Rodrigues in Funchal, Madeira in 1914, and died 20 years ago this summer -- and we had a good time. Lots of Portuguese food and, of course, sweet Madeira wine shipped over in wooden barrels from the old country just for the four-day festival. There's also a very nice Madeiran heritage museum, with tours given by the man who created it, Joe Sousa.
At the festa, you can buy big plates of food -- Portuguese fish dishes, stewed beef and pork and goat -- and eat under a pavillion or on picnic tables under a high and robust grape arbor.
But here's the best part -- for $8 you get all the fixings for a cook-it-your-self-o-bob (the Portuguese term is carne de espeto). You get a generous portion of marinated sirloin, onion and peppers in a plastic container. A festival worker hands you a long, heavy skewer (I think a six-footer, but it might have been seven) with a wooden handle. You take the fixings to a prep area and stack the meats and vegetables on the skewer, then look for a place to set it down on a 40-foot long open pit of gas-fired charcoal under a canopy. You'll be surrounded by others doing the same, some of them washing their roasting meats in Madeira wine.
Then, it's just a matter of turning the skewer now and then. People sit around and gab, listen to music, drink beer or wine, and wait for the meats to cook. Then, it takes a little team work to pull the meats and vegetables off the skewers so that they fall directly into plates. I've been to lots of festivals but have never seen this before. I had some vague memory of my father taking us to this festa when we were kids. But, having been there again -- and having seen the name Rodrigues everywhere in the heritage museum and on name tags of festival workers -- I think I'll have to go back. Maybe I'll see you there next summer.
God bless the immigrants -- and the sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters of immigrants -- for keeping faith and for keeping this tradition alive all these years.
Comments
Dear Dan,
Thanks for your report on the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament (Skewered in New Bedford). According to this morning's local paper the count for this year was about 250,000. You might want to advise your readers that New Bedford has many other attractions and celebrations not just in the summer months but throughout the year.
Being the highest dollar volume fishing port in the United States, we host a Working Waterfront Festival which this year takes place on September 23 and 24. http://www.workingwaterfrontfestival.org/ Scallops are just as likely to be skewered as beef in New Bedford. We have the world's pre-eminent whaling museum as well as a fire museum, military museum located at Fort Taber near a stone fort designed by Robert E. Lee, an art museum, and the Rotch Jones Duff House and Garden Museum.
Visitors can experience the glory of the whaling era by staying in one of three B&B's including our own which are run in the homes of whaling masters. A fourth B&B represents the industrial era which followed the peak of whaling. Like Baltimore, we are located on a beautiful body of water which can be experienced on a local harbor tour or ferries to Martha's Vineyard, Cuttyhunk Island and this summer to Block Island and Montauk, NY.
Good food reigns at the Day of Portugal Celebration in June and the rest of the year in more than twenty-five Portuguese restaurants plus other cuisines. Summerfest on the first weekend in July is one of the northeast's major folk festivals but on a friendly scale in the New Bedford Whaling National Park (and very cheap).
Centrally located between Providence and Cape Cod, we provide easy day-tripping to both as well as to Newport, Plymouth and Boston. Like Baltimore, we host a tall ship, the Schooner Ernestina, the oldest Essex-built Grand Banks schooner afloat (the Lettie G. Howard as South Street Seaport Museum is a few months older but being smaller is considered a "Georger"). www.Ernestina.org.
Best of all, we are connected to Baltimore by Southwest Airways and competing airlines via Providence's T.F. Green Airport or via Amtrak to Providence.
Come back and rediscover your hometown. Tell your readers more about us.
Thanks for the enthusiastic story.
Regards,
CHUCK SMILER
CAPTAIN HASKELL'S OCTAGON HOUSE
Email: Stay@theOctagonHouse.com
Web: www.theOctagonHouse.com
Posted by: Chuck Smiler at Captain Haskell's Octagon House | August 7, 2006 7:46 PM
Well if you like Carne Espita Madeiran style come to Bryte, California on the last weekend in June.
We have our own Madeiran Festa with Madeiran food, etc. See you there! Obrigado
Posted by: Dionizio de Freitas | January 7, 2008 12:25 PM