Caleb's Crossing and Clam Chowder

Although the title of Geraldine Brooks' Caleb's Crossing implies that the book is about a character named Caleb, the star of the book is Bethia Mayfield, a pious young woman living with her family on Martha's Vineyard in 1660.  Bethia is a minister's daughter whose curious, sharp mind makes her feel constricted by the traditional role she is expected to take as a woman.  She listens to her father's lessons to her older brother of Latin and Greek and absorbs them well, reaching a level of understanding that her distracted and disinterested brother is unable to achieve.  Out wandering the island one day she meets a young Native American boy of the local Wampanoag tribe who eventually becomes known as Caleb.  After some misgivings at first, Bethia (whom Caleb names Storm Eyes) and Caleb, who is the son of the chief of the tribe and the nephew of the tribe's medicine man, become good friends and teach each other about their worlds.  Bethia teaches Caleb to speak and read English and about Christianity, Caleb teaches Bethia the Wampanoag language and culture, and shares with her everything he knows about the nature on the island.  While Bethia enjoys her time with Caleb, she is wracked with guilt because by spending time with him, alone, she is breaking every rule she has been taught.  The book is told from Bethia's perspective, through her journal entries starting as a young girl on the island, through her time as a scullery maid at Harvard and eventually as an old woman, on her death bed.   The book transported me completely to late 17th century New England and Bethia joins the pantheon of inspiring young women heroines in literature  (Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennett) whose intelligence and disposition isolate them from their time.

Bethia Mayfield is a young Puritan girl who lives with her family in a community on Martha's Vineyard who has broken away from John Winthrop's Massachusetts.  Bethia's father is a minister who is kind and from some perspectives more liberal in his treatment of his intelligent, inquisitive daughter, but he still is governed by the principles of his time, and he expects Bethia to become a quiet, hardworking and obedient wife and mother like his own wife.   Bethia's father's passion is his efforts to educate and convert the Native Americans of Martha's Vineyard, and his peaceful outreach to them sometimes gets him in trouble with others in the Mayfield's colony.  Bethia is given more freedom perhaps than other girls her age and soon this freedom causes her to engage in dangerous activity.  Bethia befriends a young Native American boy, Caleb, who teaches her Wampanoag and how to hunt and gather on the island.  She in turn teaches him English and how to read, and in doing so sparks in Caleb, the son of a tribal chief, a hunger for learning.  This eventually leads Caleb to live with Bethia and her father, who teaches him, along with his own son and Bethia's brother, Makepeace, in preparation for entrance to Harvard.  Caleb comes to live with the Mayfields after the tragedy of Bethia losing her mother.  She blames herself for this loss, convinced that her sin of spending time with Caleb and questioning her place in the world has caused God to punish her.  After Caleb comes the family continues to be hit with tragedy, again Bethia blaming herself.  When Bethia's father is killed at sea, her lot in life takes a serious turn for the worse.  Her money obsessed grandfather basically sells her as a serf in order to pay for her brothers tuition at a preparatory school in Cambridge.  Bethia travels to Cambridge with her brother, as well as Caleb and another young Native American scholar, Joel,  to work in the school that these boys will attend during the time leading up to the entrance examination to Harvard.  Bethia must sleep on the floor in the hearth and work all day while her brother, who is not a scholar, gets hours of the instruction Bethia covets.   Bethia makes a way for herself in this place and is able to survive and find small joys by listening to the instruction of others, as she lives a life her parents never intended for her.  Makepeace eventually abandons his scholarly efforts and returns to the island, leaving Bethia to fend for herself.  Throughout this time she maintains her connection to Caleb, who despite his isolation from other students shines as a scholar and is admitted to Harvard.  Bethia becomes  a scullery made at Harvard and does so happily because during her work there is a chance she will be able to listen in to the lectures given every day by the leaders of the school.  Here at Harvard she finds love, or what is considered love for a poor 17th century woman.  When I picked up the book I had hopes that Caleb and Bethia would end up together, but Brooks knows that this relationship would have been near impossible at the time.  Instead, Caleb and Bethia remain like siblings who are tied together by their love of the island they came from and their forward thinking, even as their paths veer away from each other.  The book is written in the form of Bethia's diary, and as such it uses the vocabulary and phrases of 17th century English.  At first this was challenging but it quickly became just as enjoyable as the plot.  Once I got through the first third of the book I became totally engrossed in the language, characters and natural setting that Brooks so vividly depicts.  This is an engaging and transporting read.


Clam Chowder, adapted from "Maine Classics" by Mark Gaier and Clark Frasier
Perhaps no other dish evokes New England as much as Clam Chowder does.  In Bethia's time, the clams of Martha's Vineyard were likely a big part of her diet, and if she had a diary cow, this chowder could have been easy to make.  The recipe below is somewhat improvised by me, I review the Clam Chowder from many sources looking for one that seemed just right.  In the end this is most closely adapted from a recipe by Mark Gaier and Clark Frasier, chefs and owners of one of my favorite Maine restaurants, MC Perkins Cove (along with the uber fancy and fabulous Arrows).  I wanted to avoid using flour or cornstarch as a thickener so as a result this is a thinner chowder than you may get a a typical New England clam shack.  It is made a little fancy with the edition of type, but this is of course a simple, hearty dish that lets the clams shine.  While the dish is simple, it is very rich, a little goes a long way.

Ingredients
5 slices of bacon, chopped
2 onions, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
1 cup clam juice
1 cup milk
2 cups peeled and diced potatoes
1 and 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 and 1/2 cups chopped clams, juices reserved, plus two cups clams in shells.
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

Directions:

1. Saute bacon in a dutch oven until browned and crisped.  Remove with a slotted spoon and let drain on paper towels.
2. Add onions to the bacon fat and cook until translucent, add the thyme and the clam juice and cook for 5 more minutes.
3. Add the milk and the potatoes and cook until tender.
4. Add the chopped clams and cook until tender, about 5 - 10 minutes.
5. Add the cream and the clams in shells and cook until the shells open.
6. Add the reserved juice from the chopped clams and season with salt and pepper.
7. Stir in the reserved bacon and serve.