Weekends with Yankee

NARRATOR: This week on Weekends With Yankee, senior food editor Amy Traverso discovers the secrets to a perfect winter getaway in the classic New England town of Waldoboro, Maine.

Amy stops at a rustic luxe glamping resort and culinary destination for a festive raclette dinner.

- I always joke that there are no rules in raclette.

TRAVERSO: Right.

- Only suggestions.

NARRATOR: Then it's off to Morse's Sauerkraut, carrying a host of imported gourmet and specialty items, including its namesake, sauerkraut and pickles.

TRAVERSO: Mm.

NARRATOR: Heading south to Mystic, our adventurer Richard Wiese takes us back in time to see what gave the famous seaport its name.

- In a small boat like this, out in the middle of the open ocean, it was more likely that you came home from the Civil War than you came home from the Grand Banks.

NARRATOR: Fast-forward to the present, he joins Captain Jay Salvatore aboard the Osprey for a little morning fishing.

WIESE: Nice one.

All right.

NARRATOR: We then move east to Rhode Island for an insider's tour of Duparquet Copper Cookware, one of the few remaining makers of high-end copper cookware in North America.

So come along with us for a once-in-a-lifetime journey through New England as you've never experienced it before, a true insider's guide from the editors of Yankee Magazine.

Join explorer and adventurer Richard Wiese and Yankee's senior food editor, Amy Traverso, for behind-the-scenes access to the unique attractions that define this region.

It's the ultimate travel guide from the people who know it best.

Weekends With Yankee.

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♪ ♪ TRAVERSO: Today, I am in one of my favorite places: Tops'l Farm in Waldoboro, Maine.

Now, this is a kind of luxury-meets-rustic resort.

You can go glamping, you can rent a farmhouse.

And it's also a culinary destination.

Now, it's a very chilly day here in mid-coast Maine, but I am about to get super-cozy with a very special meal.

I don't want to give away too much yet, so let's go meet the farm's owner, Sarah Pike.

Hey, Sarah.

- Hey, Amy, how are you?

TRAVERSO: I'm so happy to be here.

- I'm glad.

TRAVERSO: I have been looking forward to this for weeks.

I love how you bring this kind of New-England-meets-Alpine vibe.

- Well, I think we have a lot to learn as New Englanders about just embracing winter.

TRAVERSO: We really do, yes.

- And celebrating all that comes with it.

TRAVERSO: Right.

- And so... TRAVERSO: Like, embracing rather than just enduring.

(laughs) - Yeah, exactly.

And that really is the spirit of this meal.

TRAVERSO: I'm dying to try some of that raclette.

Should we go in and sit down?

- I think that's a great idea.

TRAVERSO: Okay.

So let's talk a little more, in more detail about what a raclette dinner is.

- So, raclette actually means "to scrape" in French.

TRAVERSO: Right.

- And so that's why we have the little paddles here.

TRAVERSO: Ooh, nice.

- Which we're going to be utilizing in a moment.

The type of actual cheese is raclette.

And traditionally, it's served with fingerling potatoes, roasted root vegetables, fermented items, lots of different seasonal vegetables.

We're so lucky here in Waldoboro-- Morse's Sauerkraut is an amazing European deli.

TRAVERSO: Yes.

Ooh, thank you.

- And of course... Thank you so much, Samuel.

Yay.

TRAVERSO: Oh, my God.

- It's always such a fun moment.

TRAVERSO: This is so good!

Thank you.

Gorgeous colors.

- Really lovely assortment here, very wintry vegetables.

TRAVERSO: Right.

- We're so lucky we get to work with so many amazing farms in the area.

TRAVERSO: So is this all produce that you're getting locally?

- Yeah, it's amazing.

TRAVERSO: Oh, my gosh.

- Basically, what we tell each of our guests who come is, the, the main thing is getting a piece of cheese in the pan.

TRAVERSO: So how are we heating these little... - The sterno is underneath here.

TRAVERSO: Right.

- The cast-iron top and griddle.

However which way you can get your cheese melty, right?

- TRAVERSO (laughing): Right.

- I always joke that there are no rules in raclette, only suggestions.

TRAVERSO: Right.

Ooh, it slides right off.

- While we're then getting ready to enjoy that, is to get another piece of cheese in the pan.

TRAVERSO: Okay, okay.

What was it that drew you back home to Maine?

- I grew up here, not too far from the farm, about 45 minutes away in a town called Montville.

TRAVERSO: Wow.

- My husband started making hard cider as a hobby.

TRAVERSO: Oh, my gosh.

- And that, that drew us up to my brother's farm, and we spent a weekend picking apples, pressing apples, enjoying food with family.

TRAVERSO: Oh.

Neat.

- And what I realized was, I, I want to feel this more often.

TRAVERSO: Yeah.

- Feeling productive, you know, connected to the land and the seasons.

So, on my six-hour drive home is when we found Tops'l Farm for sale.

TRAVERSO: Wow, it was like kismet.

- And the rest is history, I guess.

TRAVERSO: Well, I am so grateful that you did choose to come back home.

Thank you for making this such a beautiful destination of winter, giving us something to look forward to in the winter, and it's just absolutely beautiful.

- It's so important, it's so our pleasure.

Thanks for being here.

TRAVERSO: Well, cheers to raclette.

- Cheers to that.

♪ ♪ TRAVERSO: Hey, Cody.

- Hi!

TRAVERSO: Hi, it's so nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you, too.

TRAVERSO: This is like, Santa's workshop for grown-ups who like food.

(laughs): It's, like, there's so much to look at, it's so beautiful.

Morse's is a business that's more than 100 years old, right?

- Yeah.

Yeah, my husband and I took over eight years ago.

TRAVERSO: Uh-huh.

- But the earliest articles that I have about Morse's date back to 1910.

TRAVERSO: So, originally it was purely a sauerkraut business.

- Just kraut.

TRAVERSO: And now, it's this place where the entire world is represented on the shelves.

- People who love kraut would come in and they'd be, like, "Oh, I wish I could get some real Polish kielbasa to go with this."

TRAVERSO: Right.

- "I wish I could get this thing or that thing."

It's sort of transitioned into trying to source those hard-to-find things that represent traditional food ways.

TRAVERSO: So people are really rediscovering the value of eating foods with probiotics, fermented foods.

And you guys have so much of that, but it's, it's the old ways.

It's not a new way.

- Yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

I mean, I think when we took over, we really tried to stick with the mantra, just like, "Don't mess it up."

TRAVERSO: Right.

- "It's been here forever, don't mess it up."

And there was a lot of pressure.

People really have a serious attachment to sauerkraut.

TRAVERSO: Mm.

- I did not know how intense it was.

(Traverso laughs) But Morse's has always been really known for that crispy, crunchy... TRAVERSO: Yeah.

- ...fresh, kind of zippy kraut.

And we make it the same way that it's been made, you know, for generations.

TRAVERSO: Yeah, right.

- Yeah.

TRAVERSO: Well, I would love to taste some of that product.

Can we go do that?

- All right, let's go back to the deli.

TRAVERSO: Okay, I'll follow you.

Oh, boy.

- Yes.

TRAVERSO: Oh, my gosh, look at this!

- (laughs) TRAVERSO: Wow.

- Yeah.

TRAVERSO: This is the real thing.

- The real thing.

Those are verbena wood sauerkraut barrels from Austria.

TRAVERSO: Oh, my gosh.

- It's a traditional wood used for fermentation vessels.

TRAVERSO: Wow.

Okay, so this is... - Aunt Lydia's beet relish.

TRAVERSO: Okay.

- Yeah.

So it's a little sweet, a little sour.

It's got some nice horseradish going on in there.

TRAVERSO: I want to be so careful, because beet stains forever.

(laughing): All right.

Mm.

It's so nicely balanced.

Like, the crunchy... - Yeah.

TRAVERSO: ...sweet, sour, and just a little hint of heat, but not, like, nothing overwhelming.

- Yeah.

All right, so next we're going to try the sour mustard pickles.

TRAVERSO: Okay.

- This is probably our most popular pickle.

TRAVERSO: Okay.

- It really packs a punch.

It's got a really strong vinegar... TRAVERSO: Right.

- ...sour mustard.

(both laugh) TRAVERSO: All right, here we go.

Mm.

- (laughs) TRAVERSO: I wouldn't want to inhale it... - (laughs) TRAVERSO: You know?

It is very sour, and it's... - (laughs) TRAVERSO: It's really refreshing, actually.

I want to eat these on a hot day.

- All right.

TRAVERSO: Okay, and then the belle of the ball.

- Yes, the kraut.

(Traverso laughs) - So, this kraut is still really... It's pretty fresh.

TRAVERSO: Okay, so that... - So we just excavated this last week.

TRAVERSO: Oh, okay.

- So, it's been fermenting for about between 28 and 32 days, depending on how the ferment works.

TRAVERSO: Okay.

This is kind of like spaghetti, like, I want to twirl it.

(both laugh) TRAVERSO: Mm.

Mm.

It does taste like a fresh vegetable product, even though it's fermented.

- Mm-hmm.

Because it's still crunchy like this, too, it really takes on flavors well.

TRAVERSO: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

- And works well in cooking and in recipes.

TRAVERSO: Mm-hmm.

I see some lovely cheeses.

We were at Tops'l Farm earlier today... - Yeah.

TRAVERSO: ...having raclette, which was amazing.

- Well, this is a raclette.

TRAVERSO: Mm-hmm, okay.

- And this is a vacherin.

I think they were tasting you on a raw milk raclette from France, is what you had.

TRAVERSO: Okay.

So this is... - So a little different.

TRAVERSO: Switzerland?

- Yeah, Switzerland.

TRAVERSO: Okay.

Mm.

I know you said that when you took over this place... - Mm-hmm.

TRAVERSO: ...your motto was "don't mess it up."

- Yep.

TRAVERSO: I think you have gone so far beyond that.

You have, like, truly just brought this place into another level.

- Thank you.

TRAVERSO: And it's so magical.

Just treasures from all over the world.

It's just fantastic.

- Aw, thank you.

TRAVERSO: Thank you so much.

- It's so much fun.

(laughs) TRAVERSO: So, I've got some really delicious treats, but I cannot come to Waldoboro, Maine, and not go to Moody's Diner, which is absolutely iconic and makes some really incredible desserts.

So let's go take a look.

(people talking in background) Thank you so much.

- You're welcome.

TRAVERSO: Oh, my God, that looks so good.

And it's warm.

- Oh, yes.

TRAVERSO: Moody's Diner originally opened in 1927.

It has been in the same family that entire time, and they are famous for their pies.

At the end of a long day, there is nothing better than a Maine wild blueberry pie at Moody's Diner on Route 1.

(chuckles) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Heading south, Richard will take us on a tour of the famous seaport in Mystic, Connecticut.

In the past, Connecticut's waters supported Native Americans and early settlers, and grew into a serious commercial enterprise, along with whaling and ship building.

Now, 250 years later, only the fishing industry remains.

Richard's meeting up with Captain Jay Salvatore aboard the Osprey for a little morning fishing.

It's an opportunity to learn what it means to be a modern-day fisherman, hauling in blackfish known as tautog, and getting a lesson on fileting a fish.

WIESE: Jay, Captain Jay.

- How are you?

WIESE: Good.

It's a little cold out here this morning.

- That's all right.

The fish don't care about the temperature.

WIESE: All right, well... - Just the wind, let's go.

WIESE: I don't care, either, let's go.

- Let's go.

♪ ♪ WIESE: Where are we heading out to?

- I really don't know yet till I see what the wind's doing.

That's going to make my mind up.

But we're going to head outside the sound here.

Just want to see where we can go be comfortable and catch some fish.

WIESE: So what kind of habitat do blackfish like?

- They want a rugged, rocky bottom.

A wreck's good.

Any, any rough bottom, they like it.

Somewhere where there's caverns they can hide.

♪ ♪ WIESE: What are we fishing with?

- Just gonna fish with a piece of crab and a sinker.

Pretty simple rig we're going to use.

Just hook a crab on.

WIESE: For people who fish, eight ounces may sound like a lot, but you know, we're out here with wind and tides, and you need that pretty much to hold the bottom.

So, here we go.

We're at about 25 feet of water.

Here we go!

- Even a blind pig gets an ear of corn.

- (laughing) - Atta boy, Justin.

Tautog.

- Nice little blackfish.

WIESE: Yeah, I think I have something.

- Right kind, wrong size.

- That's the right kind, wrong size.

- It's all right.

WIESE: Yeah.

- Got to get them started.

WIESE: This is a tricky kind of fishing, because as soon as they hit, if you don't set the hook, they're gone.

I think I got it, let's see.

There we go, there we go-- there we go.

- Nice one, yeah.

WIESE: Nice one.

- Got it?

WIESE: Yeah, I got it.

- Step back.

Yeah, there you go.

WIESE: That's a good one.

- Beauty.

There you go.

All right.

WIESE: Success!

- (laughs) Nice fish.

WIESE: What do you personally like about this profession?

- Oh, we make memories every day.

WIESE: Memories?

- Yep, we're making memories every day.

WIESE: And this is your office?

- That's it.

This is where we come to work.

WIESE: Oh, I think I got another one there.

You are making memories.

- Good, see?

WIESE: Wow, that's a nice one.

- (sighing): Oh.

WIESE: So I used to filet fish.

- Yep.

WIESE: When you filet a fish, how does it go?

You start with a sharp knife, I guess.

- Yeah, you got to, biggest thing is sharp knife.

Every time before I filet any fish, I take a couple of minutes to sharpen all my knives, make sure they're good to go.

Knife on, like, a 45.

Come in, right up to the corner of the head.

Turn your knife on another 45.

Come down right down the back fin here.

See how it curls up a little bit?

So you kind of just work your knife with the fish as he curves.

He'll straighten out as you come down.

WIESE: You know, I noticed you were doing this when the seas were going up and down.

- Yeah.

A lot of, lot of practice, lot of time behind a knife.

So if you're going to... Start out practicing at the dock, practicing at your house, wherever, wherever it's calm and easy for you to stand.

WIESE: And I notice you always gain a bunch of friends above you when you're fileting a fish.

- Yeah, yeah, my buddy Tony, he's flying around here somewhere.

WIESE: Tony the seagull.

- Yeah, he's somewhere around here today.

WIESE: Hey, Jay, I'd like to thank you for a really great day out fishing.

I'm honestly pleasantly surprised.

The weather was cold, it was a little rough out there, but we were catching one fish after another.

- That's what we're supposed to do.

NARRATOR: Traveling back in time, Richard's also curious about the fishing traditions of the past, and there's no better place to learn about it than the Mystic Seaport Museum.

Richard's rowing out on an old Grand Banks dory.

- This boat is a dory.

It would've been used on the Grand Banks on fishing schooners like the L.A.

Dunton.

That's a ship that we have here at the museum.

Now, schooners were designed not necessarily to be the fishing platform, but to be the processing platform.

So one of their advantages was that they could carry a lot of fish and get it back to market as, as quickly as possible, essentially.

That's one of the advantage of having fore-to-aft sails like a schooner has, is that you can sail quite close to the wind and sail pretty fast.

WIESE: And so... - Yeah.

WIESE: You know, this kind of dory, would it be out in big seas?

- It would.

They would lay a trawl line using a buoy like this, and a trawl line like this one, and go fishing for cod, essentially.

So part of the advantage of a dory is that it tips pretty well.

So the rail here can go pretty much all the way down to the water, which is great if you're trying to haul on an extremely large fish.

I mean, cod in those days could, you know, be extremely heavy, you know, about the weight of a five-year-old.

So trying to get that over with two people in a boat, and the seas sort of rocking around you was definitely, definitely a challenge.

WIESE: I got to imagine that it's a foggy day.

It's the 19th century.

You know, maybe the seas were starting to pick up a bit, and now you're sort of wondering, "Where is the schooner I came from?"

- Mm-hmm.

WIESE: And being out hundreds of miles from shore... - Mm-hmm.

WIESE: That could be a frightening prospect.

- You know, you're in a small boat like this, out in the middle of the open ocean, especially out in the North Atlantic.

They would stay out as late as November, or even later into the winter.

So it could be quite cold, it could be quite stormy, and they would really go out in any weather.

You know, statistically speaking, you know, dory fishing that went on during the Civil War, for instance, it was more likely that you came home from the Civil War than you came home from the Grand Banks.

WIESE: Wow.

(laughing) - You gotta imagine the... You gotta imagine the kind of grip that you had to have.

WIESE: It took a special person to do this.

- It really did.

NARRATOR: Next, we head to the Seaport Museum's Henry B. du Pont Preservation Shipyard, where Richard boards the S.S.

Roann.

It's one of the last surviving examples of a wooden rigged fishing vessel called an eastern-rig dragger.

- Most of the cod, haddock, and flounder that was eaten in New England, caught by these vessels from 1920 until about 1960, and... WIESE: So, I mean, this isn't that long ago.

I have relatives who would've been alive during this period, but somehow it seems the way people were out at sea, they didn't have the same kind of electronics, or, or navigation.

- Right.

There was a real high level of traditional seamanship involved in running these vessels.

They had to be riggers, they had to be mechanics.

In the early years, it, the navigation was all done by compass and sounding lead, which was... WIESE: A compass?

What's a compass?

- ...actually a... Actually a lead weight that you would lower to the bottom of the ocean floor to determine the depth of the water.

WIESE: They would've been out on Georges Bank, which is hundreds of miles off the coast.

- Week, weeklong trip.

Yes, yes.

WIESE: And, you know, the weather, you know, probably, was, you know, a little rough.

- Had one of the, one of the crew would be the cook, and they're good, good cooks.

WIESE: Did they eat fish?

- They had to have a lot of food-- no, I don't think so.

Fishermen kind of steer clear of eating fish.

NARRATOR: Foodie at heart, Richard wants to cap off his trip to Mystic by cooking up a fish stew over an open hearth at Buckingham Hall.

Keeping with the times, he's using a recipe from the Frugal Housewife cookbook, published in 1829.

WIESE: Hi, Aidan.

- Hi.

What have you got?

WIESE: I've got blackfish.

I know you were asking for codfish, but we went fishing today.

So these are fresh from the sea, just within almost sight of where we are right now.

- Okay, great, and this is a recipe for cod chowder, which is a little different from the kind of chowders that we're used to eating today.

It doesn't have cream in it.

It's thickened by crackers.

WIESE: And it looks like the ingredients are pretty simple, which means I could probably make it at home in some fashion.

- Yes, you could.

So I have this crane here, and I'm going to put my kettle right on top of that.

And that is actually just going to go right over the fire.

This is a nice, well-set-up kitchen for the 1830s.

I have the crane and I also have this thing called a trammel, and I can adjust that up and down.

WIESE: And so the recipe is from... Is it from this book, or... - It is.

That's The American Frugal Housewife, "dedicated to those who are not ashamed of economy."

(Wiese chuckles) That's by Lydia Maria Child.

So we're going to make layers.

WIESE: All right.

- I need a layer of fish to start with.

WIESE: Okay.

- And we'll just put that... WIESE: Take my lovely blackfish and put it in there.

- In the kettle, okay.

WIESE: Okay.

- And then we'll cover that up with a layer of potatoes.

(sizzling) And some onions.

(sizzling) And some crackers.

And the crackers are just going to thicken it.

And then we'll put some salt pork in, and then we do another layer.

WIESE: Okay.

And is it, the layering effect because you're not going to stir this dish?

- We are not going to stir it.

We're going to close it up tight and we're not going to touch it for about a half an hour.

WIESE: Okay.

- This is flour mixed up with some water.

WIESE: Okay.

- And I'm going to just put that right over that, and then... WIESE: Set your timer?

Oh, well... - Nope.

WIESE: They didn't have timers.

- We can't do that, which is... One of the arts of cooking over a fire like this, they had a lot more trouble than we did timing things.

You get a sense.

Once you've done it a while, you have... WIESE: Okay, and then... - You can judge time.

WIESE: Just sit in the living room and knit now.

- Okay, let's see if it's done.

WIESE: Bring it on.

(sizzling) Here we go.

(with mouth full): This is really good.

- Good.

WIESE: It's a simple recipe.

You know, the foods are all very healthy and easily found.

This could be my next comfort food.

(sighs): The fire and a nice stew.

NARRATOR: Next, we move east into Rhode Island, to the town of East Greenwich, where Jim Hamann works out of a century-old mill building as one of the few remaining North American makers of high-end copper cookware.

Hamann and his small team forge their creations by hand, and he gives us a soup-to-nuts tour of the exacting labor and artistry that goes into everything his shop makes.

- East Coast Tinning is a copper cookware restoration business, and we make pieces, as well.

We make copper here under the brand of Duparquet Copper Cookware.

I was a mechanical engineer undergrad.

My master's was in aerospace engineering, and I got an MBA along the way.

On a vacation to France, my wife and I found this copper pan that she wanted, but it was really well-used.

It had a lot of character, but she didn't want to cook in it.

And she said, "If we buy this thing, "you're going to have to figure out how to make this thing look good."

And that was really the beginning of this whole copper business.

And I put a little advertisement out on eBay just to see if something would happen.

And people started sending me pans to be restored.

And the beginnings of, of all of that certainly center around that one pan.

Copper itself as a material is a tremendous conductor of heat.

So what that does is, it spreads the heat around the bottom of the pan very quickly.

That provides you with a great, evenly heated cooking surface.

Now, the older pieces were made, obviously, to last for ages.

There was no planned obsolescence with these things.

And so, you've got pieces from, literally, the 1850s that pretty much beat anything coming out of a factory here today.

We've got a computer-controlled plasma torch making circular blanks.

Those blanks end up being annealed, softened, so that we can put them on the lathe.

For each pan that we make, we've got a separate tool, and that tool becomes the shape of the inside of the pan.

And our job is to work that copper blank over the top of that tool.

From there, we're cutting down the pan a little bit to height, and at that point, it's pretty much looking like a copper pan.

From there, we end up sanding the exterior.

We'll drill the handle and the pan at the same time, holding everything together with a couple of bolts.

And then it goes to riveting, and we're just riveting on an anvil.

We're using great, big, thick copper rivets, and we'll either silver-line or tin-line the piece from there.

The tin-lining goes right to the forge, and we heat it up to about, about 600 degrees.

The tin will melt.

That tin gets manipulated by hand, and at that point, it's ready to be polished and finished off.

So, the heat of the tinning has changed the exterior colors of the copper.

It'll turn yellow and pink and a little blue-gray.

And that final polish takes all of that tarnish away, and we're left with a beautiful pan.

Last little tidbit, stamping our logo on the exterior.

As I was restoring these vintage pieces, I kept seeing this Duparquet brand coming back to me, time and time again.

It was started by two Frenchmen in New York City in about 1853 or so.

They mainly made cast-iron ranges.

That brand really inspired me to begin making pieces.

And I started looking into it, and the brand had been abandoned in the 1930s, so I reregistered the mark, I started making pans.

Instead of the stamp having "New York" on the, on the inside, it's now a Rhode Island stamp, so you can, you can tell whether you got yourself a vintage piece or one of, one of ours here from Rhode Island.

NARRATOR: For exclusive videos, recipes, travel ideas, tips from the editors and access to the Weekends with Yankee digital magazine, go to weekendswithyankee.com and follow us on social media @yankeemagazine.

Yankee magazine, the inspiration for the television series, provides recipes, feature articles and the best of New England from the people who know it best.

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Closed caption funding provided by... ♪ ♪ (seagulls squawking, waves crashing) Major funding provided by... ♪ ♪ - In Maine, spring isn't just a gift.

It's an achievement.

This is Maine.

Forged by nature.

- New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

Relax already.

- Kloter Farms-- from outdoor structures to solid hardwood furniture for over 45 years.

- On an American Cruise Lines journey, you can explore historic New England.

- Country Carpenters.

Handcrafted barns and homes for over 50 years.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪