10.10.22 Branch Line Restaurant, Arsenal Yards, Watertown, MA
“Join us September 30th through October 10th to celebrate Indigenous Food Week! Organized by the Pigsgusset Initiative, a working group of Watertown Citizens for Peace Justice and the Environment. Pigsgusset Initiative and Branch Line have partnered with acclaimed Wampanoag Chef Sherry Pocknett to bring you three Wampanoag dishes: Three Sisters Garden Succotash, Corn Cakes, and Cranberry Chutney. By introducing diners to Wampanoag cuisine, we honor culinary traditions perfected across hundreds of generations by the original peoples to inhabit this land.”
Serendipity: At a recent social at my house, the first since March 2020, my neighbor Mishy Lesser asked, “Would you put up a yard sign for this event?”
Mishy is one of the shakers and movers who created “Watertown Celebrates Indigenous People’s Day” along with a team from The Pigsgusset Initiative.
Mishy floated the idea to Branch Line Restaurant owner Garrett, who viewed it as an opportunity to widen the lens on the menu and serve cultural awareness along with food associated with Native American history.
Like a pebble tossed into a pond, the ripples of the original idea spread around town to lap against a well-known restaurant. a famous chef, community organizations and The First Parish of Watertown.
Thanks to a generous grant from the Watertown Community Foundation, Mishy reached out to Wampanoag chef Sherry Pocknett who developed a menu with Branch Line’s chef Ivan Conill.
The two chefs had fun together in the kitchen, tasting, tweaking, and beaming with delight. Then Chef Sherry and Mishy trained the kitchen and wait staff in the in the culinary history and meaning of the dishes.
Saturday evening, October 1, Branch Line Restaurant
My dining companion and I enter a culinary time machine and sample both of Chef Sherry Pocknett’s Wampanoag dishes...Three Sisters Succotash (Paquahog Clams with local squash, beans, corn) and Journey cakes.
The 2 generously sized journey cakes, cornmeal flatbread cooked on a griddle were served with oh-so-good thick sweet cranberry chutney and garnished with chopped scallions. The journey cakes were the size of the dinner plate, a meal in itself. Likewise, the Three Sisters Garden Succotash, a large shallow bowl filled with half a dozen Paquahog Clams with local squash, beans, corn, and chopped scallions. The clams are just one of the ways Chef Sherry adds protein to the dish.
These two staples of Native American northeast coast tribes required no refrigeration, were dried, and used in foods for months after harvest.
Journey Cakes, also known as Johnny Cakes, have their roots in Native American culture but recipes exist in latitudes from Newfoundland to southern states to the Caribbean and the Bahamas.
Confederate soldiers stuffed them into their pockets for sustenance on the march.
Johnny cakes were a staple for Rhode Islanders for centuries.
Here’s where the water gets deep. In the Ocean State, fist fights have broken out arguing about the provenance of johnny cakes.
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/15/garden/johnnycake-is-traditional-and-controversal-in-rhode-island.html
Keep this in mind when you branch out to try Johnny Cakes.
Many thanks to Mishy Lesser who contributed facts to the story and corrected an earlier version.

Entering Branch Line during construction in Arsenal Yards

Branch Line, heated open patio on L and restaurant on R

Indigenous Food Menu

Rockey's Spritz - Aperol, Rockey's Liqueur, Cava, highly recommended by this writer.

Journey Cakes served as a pair, we each had one. Deliciously dense, moist, filling (and larger than appears in photo).

Three Sisters Garden Succotash: a large shallow bowl filled with half a dozen Paquahog Clams with local squash, beans, corn, and chopped scallions.

Branch Line, heated open patio on L and restaurant on R

Interior

Illuminated stack, remnant of original 1816 Watertown Arsenal Building reported to be one of the largest steel-frame structures in the United States, sized to accommodate both very large gun carriages and the equipment used to construct them. A venture to Branch Line serves as an appetizer to visitors interested in history of early American mechanized industry.
Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.
Other resources
https://whatscookingamerica.net/history/johnnycakes.htm
https://watertowncitizens.org/working-groups/pigsgusset-initiative/
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/10/09/arts/tess-lukey-appointed-first-curator-native-american-art-trustees-reservations/
Duke and 'Trane
"Alexa, play Duke Ellington"
A big surprise when first two songs are arrangements with John Coltrane, whose nimble evocative phrasing are harbingers of where he will take it as he ventures over the horizon toward the dense introspective opaque arrangements he will play in his later career.
Both songs are from the Impulse album "Duke Ellington/John Coltrane" featuring the tight group of Elvin Jones, drums; Jimmy Garrison, double bass; Aaron Bell, double bass; Sam Woodyard, drums.
MY LITTLE BROWN BOOK
Composed by Billy Strayhorn, a lyrical inside-the-lines light-as-a-feather reverie, Duke and double bass (Aaron Bell) lay down a foundation for Coltrane's alto sax that perches in your memory long after its final notes fade. Ellington's spare phrasing, brilliantly timed chords swirl with Coltrane's sweet trills that are intimations of where Coltrane will be headed as he breaks new ground after this.
ANGELICA
This arrangement lifts off like a kite in a late afternoon breeze... your psyche riding along as your memory bank opens a door to a sweet moment in your love life when the mixtures were calibrated just about right...three minutes of sweet melancholy.
Upbeat with Elvin Jones' muffled drums pounding an insistent beat, Jimmy Garrison's on-time double bass, Duke piano in hot pursuit in a ripe swing with vaguely a Latin lilt, Coltrane’s tenor sax that he favored after 1947 riffing along with increasingly be-bopping swoops and trills for a couple of minutes before Duke sets it gently to earth with familiar riffs that fade into silence as the song ends three minutes later.
Hard to find Duke and John Coltrane pull off a better example of where 'Trane's train is heading.
Keep asking Alexa to play John Coltrane. Hear Coltrane's solos fly into the wild like a bird swooping from its comfortable nest into his locomating Blue Trane, 'Trane at the throttle pushing his band-mates to pour some of their own coal into the fire box.
And when you have an hour or so... read this out then play "A Love Supreme".
John Coltrane – bandleader, vocals, tenor saxophone; Jimmy Garrison – double bass; Elvin Jones – drums, gong, timpani; McCoy Tyner – piano.
And for a chaser. John Coltrane Full Album: Stardust...put this band in a studio and they chilled like a bowl of jello.
"Stardust" (Hoagy Carmichael, Mitchell Parish) – 10:44 "Time After Time" (Sammy Cahn, Jule Styne) – 7:45 "Love Thy Neighbor" (Mack Gordon, Harry Revel) – 9:21 "Then I'll Be Tired of You" (Yip Harburg, Arthur Schwartz) – 9:27 Personnel[edit] John Coltrane – tenor saxophone Wilbur Harden – flugelhorn (track 1), trumpet (3) Freddie Hubbard - trumpet (4) Red Garland – piano Paul Chambers – bass Jimmy Cobb – drums (1, 3) Arthur Taylor – drums (2, 4)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vf6E2Pu7Hc
October 23, 2022 in Commentaries, Music | Permalink | Comments (0)