Monterey - Sicily of the Seven Seas

Sardine Dreams with Flipper Song

"Cannery Row is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.” John Steinbeck

Like many baby boomers, I read John Steinbeck in junior high school, which is now known as middle school. That’s not all the only thing that changed. During my lifetime, California truly became the “Golden State,” the place where American dreams came true. With its hallowed golf courses and artsy beach communities with movie star mayors, Steinbeck’s stomping grounds in Monterey Bay became the personification of such dreams. Yet Steinbeck’s books were always there to remind me that such prosperity was built on backs of our ancestors‘ hard struggles.

That writer is best remembered today for “Grapes of Wrath” in which Dust Bowl refugees form the backbone of Central California agriculture. But I was more drawn the characters in his Monterey stories, “Cannery Row” and “Sweet Thursday,” that reified Chinese Californians. When my parent’s generation was still segregated within Chinatown enclaves, Steinbeck was creating fully assimilated Chinese characters. When most Americans still regarded Chinese Americans with suspicion, Cannery Row’s Lee Chong projected epitomic American values like industriousness and generosity.

I was also drawn to those Monterey stories by my own fascination with the coast. Because I grew up in inner city Oakland, the ocean represented my American dream. Our “family vacations” were day trips to see the beach in places like Santa Cruz and Monterey. We kids barely had time to get our bare feet sandy before we had to pile back in Dad’s car and head back to our Chinatown restaurant.

After I began traveling with bi polar bear Wroburlto, Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley: In Search of America” became a spiritual guidebook for us, even though Steinbeck’s dog never went through the wild mood swings my honeybear does. So, when Wro told me he wanted to visit Cannery Row in Monterey, I figured it was time to pay respects to our great mentor. Fortunately, Monterey makes that easy.

Ocean View Avenue, the setting of most of Steinbeck’s Monterey stories, has been renamed Cannery Row, despite the fact that the canneries there have pretty much been closed for business for half a century. If his book had not immortalized that industry, Monterey’s canneries would be as little remembered today as the horseless carriages or steamboats that also thrived during the fish canning era. Like most things Californian, Monterey has re-invented itself. Cannery Row is now a family-friendly, OSHA-approved, five star theme park where Steinbeck plays like background piano music. Tourist shops sells his books and T-shirts. The canneries’ distinctive skywalk passageways have been restored to make the avenue look like it did in the days when the book was written.

I doubt the novelist would recognize the place today though. In his books, this was a de facto skid row while Monterey’s uphill real estate was the dominion of respectability. Today, Cannery Row is some of the choicest oceanfront property in America. Like the book’s hero Doc, contemporary Monterey embraces the ocean as if it were a lovable cartoon seal. The Monterey Aquarium has become an icon of California tourism anchoring a hotel, restaurant and boutique enterprise zone.

We considered two hotels for our trip - the Monterey Plaza Hotel (MPH) and The Clement. The town also has some delightful boutique inns in quieter parts of town (Pacific Hotel is my favorite) and some marvelous hotels linger in nearby Carmel. But Wro insisted that we stay in the middle of Cannery Row - where we could hear seals barking all night long. That left two top hotels to choose between, with personalities as different as Wro’s and mine, or as Wro’s and Wro’s. After checking them out, we devised a simple test to help others choose. Just ask yourself if you would feel more comfortable in Los Angeles or Honolulu.

The Clement projects bustling chic and big city cool - it reminds me of a W Hotel in the middle of say the Los Angeles Civic Center. Guests seem to be young and hip and busy. Its main restaurant, The C, is even named in W style. The Monterey Plaza Hotel is laid back, like a grand old hotel in Hawaii. We asked general manager Doug Phillips about that.

“All great hotels have a definite sense of place. After I visited this place the first time I fell instantly in love,” he related, before adding that he came to Monterey from Hawaii via the legendary Greenbriar resort in West Virginia.

“We encourage, we cultivate the Aloha spirit here,” he admitted, explaining how every employee we talked to somehow knew our names and walked with us to point out directions.

From our room we could see the entire Monterey Bay. I exploited Wro’s interest in that vista to teach him some of the local history. We took Monterey’s Walking Path of History along the bay shore to the Monterey Maritime Museum. I don’t think the museum will be too upset if I condense what we learned there amid their sardine boats and fish nets.

Monterey’s Melting Pot

Rumsien people lived in Monterey for thousands of years before the first Spanish visitors. Both were attracted to the same good food - rich fishing waters, fertile soil and abundant wildlife. Portuguese settlers from the Azore Islands began shore-whaling in Monterey Bay soon after Mexico lost California to the USA. That industry did well until kerosene made whale oil obsolete. Then Chinese settlers developed a new junk fishing industry around China Point where they dried and shipped their catch. They made too much money though. New laws and regulations soon forced the Chinese out of fishing for anything except squid, a commodity that no other ethnic group cared about. Plus, squid were fished at night when other boats were docked.

Anti-Chinese sentiments still continued to grow. A Chinatown in China Point (where Pacific Grove now borders new Monterey) burned down mysteriously and cops prevented the residents from returning to rebuild. The Chinese negotiated for a much smaller settlement, in much less desirable real estate along Ocean View Avenue, smack dab in the middle of what became Cannery Row. Without the Chinese, the canning industry likely would never have happened here because Asian fishing families provided the expertise of fish cutting and drying.

The Japanese introduced Americans to eating abalone and they thrived on its commercialization until the abalone were overfished. By the time the Chinese had been relocated by arson, salmon fishing had become profitable. Frank Booth established a canning industry on Ocean View Avenue in 1896. Norwegian Knut Hovden pumped things up with a new can sealing technology and Sicilian Pietro Ferrante revolutionized the industry with new nets, boats and knowledge about sardine fishing. Sardines and Sicilian fishermen dominated Monterey’s fishing industry until its demise after World War II.

Compared to Atlantic sardines, California sardines were huge, over 14 inches long. Salmon cans were never even downsized to fit sardines. The industry grew in World War I when tinned sardines became a popular battle ration. After that war, American tastes moved toward other things and California sardines were converted mostly into more profitable by-products. By the time the industry peaked, canning accounted for only a small percentage of the sardines fished here. Most of the sardine catch became feed for chickens and livestock, or oil for fertilizer.

The high water mark for Cannery Row was World War II when the US government again bought canned sardines for battle rations. That encouraged over fishing. Steinbeck’s book came out in the sardine’s banner year of 1945. The following year produced a frighteningly low catch. 1947 proved that was no fluke and that the conservationists, like Steinebck’s mythical Doc, had been right all along. The industry’s belief that sardines could never be over fished was exposed as tragic fallacy. Cannery Row became a ghost town within a decade.

Massaro & Santos

All that history made us very hungry. Because Sicily was settled by so many different ethnic groups, from French and Tunisians to Arabs and Greeks, its cuisine is richer and more diverse than that of any other part of Europe. I figured that Monterey’s long history of Sicilian settlers meant that it would be a hotbed for Sicilian restaurants. Wro believed that he was destined to meet a really “hot Sicilian“ chef.

However, we were told that Sicilian restaurants had been relegated to Monterey’s past. The closest thing we could find was Massaro & Santos, on the pier halfway between Old Monterey boardwalk and Cannery Row. Frank Massaro’s dad was full a Sicilian, so there was a connection, but Frank’s from Stockton. His story is more New Monterey, than Cannery Row.

“Dad told me, son, if you want to go into the restaurant business you need to get out of Stockton. I came here to bartend for the US Open (golf tournament) in 1972 and I never left,” he explained.

This 90 seat restaurant hangs over the water and puts one in the mood for seafood. We visited on a slow day, so Frank and chef Miguel Cortez, from the culinary town of Oaxaca, could sit down and talk to us.

On their advice, we tried “scalone” - a scallop and abalone cake covered with almonds and lemon butter, garlic and white wine sauce with a little cream.

We also enjoyed a squid salad that was big enough for four people. Sand dabs were a great $12 entree, with lots of pasta and fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, plus vegetables. One daily “special’ will remind us to always ask the price of “specials.” A blue nose bass was dryer and less exciting than the sand dabs and it was served with the exact same plating. It cost $27 though. More than double the most expensive entrée on the regular menu.

Decadent Otter Acts

We walked our lunch off on Cannery Row, ending up at the Monterey Aquarium, a place that had been rated “two thumbs way up” by my chief cultural advisers - preschoolers Maggie and Stella. On their recommendations, we timed our visit to include feeding times for both the otters and the penguins. That was great advice.

I remembered that naturalist Annie Dillard had written that one of her greatest voyeuristic joys was to have seen an otter in the decadent act of floating on his back. The Aquarium’s otters never got her memo about that being a rare act. They dive to the bottom of their three story tall tank to catch their dinner, then they bring it up to the surface and eat it while floating on their backs. We couldn’t get enough of that show.

The Aquarium puts the otters’ food (crabs, clams, kelp, sea urchins and sea stars) into toy-like food tubes that stimulate their natural behavior of working to get food out of shells. Otters have the thickest fur of all animals and we saw them hide food in their coats. They eat a quarter of their body weight each day and during an average day a sea otter spends about eight hours feeding, five to six hours grooming and eleven hours at leisure. A good job if you can get it.

Penguins by contrast only eat about 14 per cent of their weight, freeing up time for other things. Otters and penguins have vastly different parenting skills. An otter mother usually has one pup at a time. If she has twins, she abandons one of them. Penguins, maybe because they aren’t always eating, make better parents. We got a kick out of watching them, both moms and dads, protect their eggs, build their nests and teach their chicks to watch out for bears. ( Polar bears’ favorite food is penguin.) Penguin parents regurgitate their fish to feed their kids. We spent several hours at the Aquarium checking out cute critters and some fish canning history too.

Watching otters and penguins eat made us hungry, so we walked back down Cannery Row to the Monterey Plaza Hotel, only stopping for a few shopping distractions. After seeing souvenir photos of the real life people that served as Steinbeck‘s models for “Cannery Row” characters, Wro surprised me with the announcement that he was “over Mack and into Doc now.” I realized his decision was superficial, that Doc was modeled after handsome Ed Ricketts (Nick Nolte in the movie) and Mack’s model was the less attractive Gabe Bicknell (E. Emmett Walsh). But I’m happy for anything that makes Wro more interested in a scientist than a slacker party boy. I so hope this means he’s maturing.

The Duck Club

We usually like to get out of our hotels to dine but not in Monterey. The Duck Club in the MPH is a California treasure. I love chef James Waller’s story about how he was fated to be a chef.

“I came from a big family and I was one of the younger kids. Mom didn’t like to cook but, after the older kids moved on, she developed a fondness for going out to eat and taking the rest of us with her. We younger kids were really spoiled food wise,” he said.

The hotel is owned by same Alden family that owns Rodney Strong vineyard, so wine and food are closely paired here. Because the hotel sponsors the Aquarium’s “Cooking for Solutions” and “Seafood Watch” programs, The Duck Club hosts the Monterey Aquarium Seafood Challenge each year. James told us how one famous chef once brought the ecologically taboo blue fin tuna to that competition. It sounded like an honest mistake so I won’t tell on Roy.

Paying due diligence to a namesake, The Duck Club’s duck takes five days to prepare . Air-dried ducks are brined in soy sauce, jalapenos, coriander, sugar, orange and lemon juices. Actually, it’s more like a dipping than a brining - they take otter-like 8 hour naps between dives in the tank - twice a day for two days. Then they are cooked on wire racks and finished in wood burning ovens.

James Waller is an odd duck himself - a contented California chef. He’s been at the same job here for a dozen years now. New and flashy may be trendy, but I prefer tradition and good execution at the dinner table.

“Over 60 % of the hotel’s guests are long distance travelers, so we‘ve got to have calamari, crab cakes and local produce for them. That’s what they expect in Monterey. But our wood aroma is our signature,” Waller explained.

Of course, the wondrous ocean views are a signature too, at least if you dine as early as we did.

We watched the sun go down over diver scallops wrapped in pancetta, on beds of diced roasted beets plus roast spears of salsify with herbed lobster buerre blanc. Then we tried some Dungeness crab cakes with tempura asparagus, baby heirloom tomatoes and a drizzle of remoulade.

La Brea artisan breads are finished in the oven and add to the spirit of the hearth.

A smooth lobster bisque included some whole mussels and crème fraiche. Caesar salad tasted like anchovies, not anchovy flavoring. We asked for striped bass with an off-menu pairing of ginger carrot puree, micro sprouts, pomegranate reduction and wild mushrooms.

James is not one of those chefs who go nuts if you ask for such things. An entrée of Kobe short ribs, in Pinot Noir reduction, came with mashed potatoes, onion rings and mushrooms.

We ate so much that we could only share one dessert - a fantastic crème brulee of Meyer lemons and smoked paprika.

That night I identified with the song of the howling seals and I promised to eat less the next day. But as soon as we awoke, we returned to The Duck Club for a scrumptious breakfast of oak smoked salmon, strawberry macadamia crepes, a little compote of prunes, figs, cherries and berries and lots of coffee - to stifle our appetites. James then gave us a tip that we didn’t have time to check out - so listen up:

Monterey Insider Info - Because of the post 9-11 nature of national security, the new personnel at the Monterey Naval Station Language School has encouraged the opening of some excellent new Afghani, Iraqi and Persian cafes.

Phil’s Fish

On our way out of The Duck Club, we received another insider tip. A fifth generation Monterey Sicilian told us that the old Sicilian restaurant heritage isn’t dead, it’s just been relocated a few miles out of town in Moss Landing. That was good information, but it created a dilemma - I had planned on eating at Don Elkins‘ Central Texas BBQ in Castroville. We always eat there when we’re in the vicinity, which is probably why I had never eaten in Moss Landing, just a few miles west of Castroville. I had been dreaming about Don’s homemade sausages and slow smoked ribs and briskets all weekend, at least when I wasn’t eating James Waller‘s food. Wro however was sulking about his “dashed dream” of meeting a hot Sicilian chef. So, in order to ward off a violent mood swing, I decided to sacrifice my smoked meat craving and headed for Phil DiGirolamo’s place in Moss Landing.

Phil is a jolly guy who tells his family’s version of the Cannery Row history.

“I was born and raised in Monterey. Grandfather immigrated from Sicily, to fish for sardines - on the pursein King Phillip. He had 12 kids including my dad. Dad owned Angelo’s (restaurant), where Isabella’s is now. So I have Sicilian restaurateur-ing and Sicilian fish mongering in my blood.

"We came to Moss Landing for the dock in the 60’s, when albacore and salmon were plentiful. By 1973, we felt that Monterey had become so touristy that it was time to abandon it completely and we moved all the operations here. Then there was a salmon glut and no one wanted them - the smokers cut off their orders, the restaurants had more than they wanted. We were desperate to all the salmon we had, so we started putting ads in newspapers as far away as Sacramento. That worked, people just started showing up here to buy salmon. That convinced us there was a need for a fish market on the docks,” Phil told us as we walked around what has become a giant seafood market and restaurant.

“We started in a tiny area, selling fish off the dock. Then we opened a 600 square foot fish market. I did demo cooking to promote the business. I used to make cioppino in a red wok that I bought at Costco. People would watch me and order some, so I started promoting cioppino with “bring your own pot” ads. People did that. We still do that at Christmas, but after the internet popularity hit home, we had to find something more standard. So now we use (plastic) buckets.

“Customers won’t let me change the menu though. And I have to respect their sense of tradition. This place has a life of its own. Families often hold reunions and memorial services here - because it was the dearly departed loved one’s favorite place. Grandmas and moms tell me that they have been coming since they were as young as the youngest kids at their table,” he explained.

Just his kitchen employs nine line cooks - at all times. Wro noticed that most of the chefs were Mexican, mostly from Michoacan and Oaxaca. Head chef and smoker Ricky Loya told Wro that he had a surprise for us later.

I have never been in a kitchen where so many line workers seemed any happier. Phil is clearly a nice guy to work for. I asked him about the Sicilian influence on Northern California cuisine, particularly seafood.
“Cioppino (San Francisco’s most famous hometown dish) is a Sicilian inspiration I am sure. The spices give it away - they’re the same as Sicilian “bicce brodo.” Cioppino is probably a slurred Sicilian pronunciation for “chippin in.” Whatever was left over went into the pot.

As a young man, I learned a lot from my grandmothers - both were great Sicilian chefs. They came to Monterey in the 1920’s and lived through the Depression when the modus operandi was to use everything and waste nothing. I came home from school and kneaded dough for bread and for pasta. I love home made pasta, but I also love the dried kind - I use Barilla in the restaurant now,” he explained.

Wro asked Phil how faithfully he follows the environmentalist creed, like the Aquarium’s list of forbidden fish. Phil answered with delightful candor.

“I do what I want. I argue with them all the time about what’s endangered and such. Fact is, I am a fish broker and I think that my information is better, and certainly more thorough and up-to-date than their’s is. They ( The Aquarium) are my land lord too. I did take shark off my menu, because they are such a slow grower. But I keep Chilean sea bass on it - I just make completely sure that mine comes from a fisherman who only uses short lines. The long lines are the problem with fishing them,” he explained.

Phil’s walls revealed that he is a proud Scottie owner. They were covered with blue ribbons and plaques that the doggies won before leading Phil into a new fishy enterprise. He now markets specialty dog food for Scotties and other breeds like them who are susceptible to liver problems. Phil’s special formula is made with sweet potatoes, green beans, carrots and cod. He makes it himself - steaming, packaging and freezing for shipment.

His most popular mail order items though are clam chowder, both red and white, and, duh, cioppino. He makes a base for both soups that can be dehydrated with milk or not - so lactose-intolerant seafood lovers can use it.

In pure blooded Sicilian style, Phil’s chief advisers are still family member.

“Dad’s been gone a long time now but I still talk to him everyday,” he said, pointing to photos on the wall. Phil’s 88 year old mother -in-law comes to work with him daily, at 7 a.m.. She and Phil take only a half day off each week.

“She’s got to earn her room & board. She lives with me,“ he joked.

When we visited, Phil had just raised $100,000 for Legal Aid for Seniors with a fund raiser that paired Hahn’s Estate Pinot Blanc with Phil’s cioppino.

“Whatever you give comes back to you, as long as you don’t ever give to receive, just give for sake of giving,” he explained.

Sicily, by any other name

I hoped Wro was listening but I knew he was becoming impatient for Ricky Loya’s surprise. We began eating a little snack of fried oysters, sand dabs, shrimp, artichoke hearts in tempura, New England clam chowder, cioppino and Caesar salad with long white anchovies. Then we tried some of the freshest, brightest halibut I have ever seen, baby octopus, petrale and ling cod - all of which had been fished from local waters. Finally Ricky brought out the star attraction of our entire Cannery Row odyssey - grilled California sardines, “Yes, they are making a comeback,” Phil said, appropriately closing a circular story.

For centuries, fishermen have been lured into the deep and dangerous waters beyond Monterey Bay by ever changing enticements - from whales and salmon to squid, abalone, sardines, halibut, snapper, tuna, et cetera. Similarly, the composite American dreamer who came to Monterey over the centuries has morphed by ever changing blood lines - from American Indian and Spanish to Mexican, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Scandinavian, Sicilian, Vietnamese, Afghani, Persian - and Mexican again. So it goes.

The Central Coast of California has now thoroughly assimilated the Portuguese and Chinese who settled here 150 years ago and separately developed Monterey’s signature fishing industry. The islander mentality of Sicilian Monterey also washed away in the California’s melting pot but Phil DiGirolamo believes such things only change on the surface. Just as Sicily has always been a melting pot of Mediterranean cultures, Monterey has become the Sicily of the Seven Seas.

“My Mexican workers are the 21st century’s Sicilians. They work hard and they appreciate things that others take for granted. I am blessed to have them. They make my place what it is,” DiGirolamo explained.
My eighth grade teacher said that “Cannery Row” was a story about hope and appreciation. The book’s characters have very little in life but they need even less. That kind of contentment might seem outdated today but it makes me wonder about the tides that pour into Monterey Bay each night to a Hallelujah chorus of barking seals. Perhaps that unique combination of moon-pulled water, jagged geology and flipper song creates a magic mist that nourishes hope as carefully as penguin parents protect their eggs.

Otherwise, how does one explain the little miracles: Skid Row transforming itself into a luxury hotel zone; sea otters finding a place where they feel safe enough to float half their days away on their backs; and California sardines surviving near certain extinction to grace Ricky Loya‘s open-fire grill?
　
If you go

Hotel Pacific
300 Pacific St., Monterey, CA 93940, 800-554-5542, http://www.hotelpacific.com/

Monterey Plaza Hotel
400 Cannery Row
Monterey, CA 93940, 831-635-4077, http://www.montereyplazahotel.com/

Phil’s Fish Market & Eatery
7600 Sandholdt Road, Moss Landing, CA 95039
831--633-2152, http://www.philsfishmarket.com/

Massaro & Santos
32 Cannery Row, Coast Guard Pier
Monterey, CA, 93940, 831-649-6700, http://www.massaroandsantos.com/

Monterey Maritime Museum
Across from Fisherman's Wharf in Downtown Monterey
(831) 372-2608http://www.montereyhistory.org/