A Northwest Costal Thanksgiving Part III: Cioppino

The one thing I forgot about, though, was the need for wide, shallow bowls to serve.  Fortunately, the rental beach house had a stack of glass pie plates, which became bowls for us:

Also, like other messy dishes involving crab, you'll need to equip each diner with a towel, bib or apron to wear.  Since we hadn't prepared ahead, we had to improvise a bit:

Since cioppino is a traditional dish, there are a couple dozen legitimate variations on the recipe.  Particularly, the stew would be prepared with whatever "catch of the day" was available on San Francisco's wharves, especially whatever didn't sell in the morning.  The defining elements of cioppino are that it include several kinds of West Coast fish and shellfish, as well as peppers, onions, tomatoes, garlic, and a large amount of wine, with little or no stock or broth.  Many would argue that Dungeness crab is a requirement, but presumably cioppino was made year-round, which means that there must have been a crabless version in the summer.

Interestingly, despite the Italian name, cioppino is almost unquestionably a Portuguese-American dish.  Particularly, the Portuguese have a traditional recipe called "caldeirada" which is pretty much exactly cioppino before adaptation to San Francisco ingredients.  Fisherman's Wharf in the 1860s would have had plenty of Portuguese sailors (later, they all became bankers).

Given the multiple versions and variations possible, I have made no attempt to represent them all.  Instead, this recipe is exactly the one I made for this Thanksgiving.  Substitute according to your best judgement.

Don't be intimidated by the list of ingredients in the cioppino below.  It really does come together quite fast.  The main drawback of cioppino is that the large amount of seafood will set you back $30 to $50.  The recipe below feeds 4 to 6 people as a main course, or 8 to 10 as a first course.

Cioppino

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups diced onion
• 1 green bell pepper, diced (yes, green, not red or yellow)
• 1 anaheim pepper, diced (optional)
• 1/2 cup diced celery
• 5-8 cloves minced garlic
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/4 to 1 tsp crushed red pepper, to taste
• 2 cups diced tomatoes
• 1 3/4 cups good pinot grigio or sauvignon blanc wine
• 1 pint clam juice (subs. stock)
• 1 lbs manila clams
• 12-15 large shrimp
• 3/4 lbs rockfish ("snapper")
• 1 dungeness crab, about 2lbs before cleaning
• 1/2 cup minced parsley
• salt & black pepper
• deep, wide pot (e.g. dutch oven), crab crackers, crab picks, wide shallow soup bowls, aprons or towels for all diners.