Provincetown Seafood Cookbook

“The Provincetown Seafood Cookbook is something I go back to read often. It’s grounding. It’s not so much a cookbook as it is a piece of cultural anthropology. A sincere love letter to a very special place that maybe doesn’t totally exist anymore. I bought my copy in 1991 when I first moved to the Outer Cape from New Jersey. The stories it told helped me connect to this spit of sand on a mystical, pagan level. It teaches respect for a place, the people, a simpler lifestyle, ceremony, for the ocean and for the fish. The recipe for Squid Stew (page 151) is as simple and true as it is transcendental. This book is the closest thing to a bible in my house. First published in Provincetown in 1975, it was long out of print, but it’s once again available (Seven Stories Press, 2018). Do yourself — or any cook who cares about this place — a solid and grab a copy.” —Tony Pasquale, The Provincetown Independent

Howard Mitcham was the legendary author, chef, artist and poet whose three major cookbooks, Provincetown Seafood Cookbook, Creole Gumbo and All That Jazz- A New Orleans Seafood Cookbook, and Clams, Mussels, Oysters, Scallops and Snails have influenced a generation of today’s chefs. James Howard Mitcham was born in Winona, Mississippi and graduated from Greenville High School together with his friend the writer Shelby Foote. At the age of 16 Mitcham became deaf from spinal meningitis, but that didn’t seem to stop him or even slow him down as he regaled friends with stories in his booming, Southern-accented voice. He earned a degree in art and architecture at Louisiana State University, then moved to New York’s Greenwich Village, where he ran the Jane Street Gallery in the 1940s. Many of Mitcham’s friends learned sign language to converse with him. For people who didn’t know how to sign, Mitcham would carry notebooks and pens so they could write him notes. He co-authored a food column for the Provincetown Advocate with Jan Kelly, who called Mitcham “brilliant and never boring. Mitcham died on August 22nd, 1996, at the age of 79.

Anthony Bourdain is a writer, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning television personality, and former chef. Since 2002, he has hosted several culinary programs, including Anthony Bourdain- No Reservations, which ran for seven years on the Travel Channel, and his current series, Anthony Bourdain- Parts Unknown, on CNN. He is the best-selling author of the memoir Kitchen Confidential- Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, as well as two cookbooks, three crime novels, a biography of Typhoid Mary, and several other works of nonfiction.

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