A Holiday Gift: We’ve Got the Recipe for “The Best Stuffies”
“We found a honey pot of quahog activity!” one of the women called out just ten minutes before the boat launch was returning the group from Wickets Island to the Buzzards Bay Coalition’s Onset Bay Center where 65 senior citizens had gathered to enjoy their harvest.
The Center’s second annual Baysgiving took place on November 20th as a collaboration between the Onset Bay Center, the Wareham Public Schools and the Wareham Council on Aging. Guests ranging from 8 to 90 years old gathered to feast and celebrate the gifts of the bay.
The fifteen people who had volunteered to harvest the quahogs brought a variety of experience to the task: some were old hands, some were brand new to shell fishing. The thing they had in common? No fear of wading in the water late in November!
The star of the show were the freshly harvested quahogs. Boiled outside in two huge pots along with shrimp, potatoes and sausages, they were served to the 80 people who came for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner.
Chef Joe Breda, the culinary instructor at Wareham High School, was part of the mix. He brings his Wareham students to the Center to quahog on spring and fall field trips. “Once you get them out there, they’re so excited when they actually get a quahog. It’s such a good learning experience. We’ll bring them back and the next day we’ll cook them: make chowder, put ‘em on a pizza, make stuffies…”
For Baysgiving, Chef Joe brought stuffies prepared by Wareham students. Stuart Downie, the Coalition’s VP of Outdoor Exploration, heard people exclaiming, “these are the best stuffie’s I’ve ever had!”
They were created using a recipe Chef has honed over many years of working at restaurants like Clancy’s in Dennisport and Paul’s Pizza in Falmouth (where the owner was known as Uncle Stuffie).
Here’s our holiday gift to you, thanks to Chef Joe who was willing to share his recipe. Like the best chefs, it’s more art than science so we don’t have exact measurements for the spices and butter. But it’s a good start toward making your own delicious stuffies this holiday season.