BLUE HILL — On a bright, clear day, with the chill a promise of winter to come, nothing satisfies like a steaming bowl of chowder.
Nothing except maybe 12 different kinds of chowder.
That was the offering Sunday during the second annual chowder cook-off at the fifth annual Foliage, Food and Wine Festival, sponsored by the Blue Hill Area Chamber of Commerce.
The cook-off was one of the highlights of the festival, which wrapped up Sunday at the Mainescape Garden Center. The festival has grown during its five years, according to Chamber president Bill Grindle, and now brings as many as 600 or more people into town.
“If this nice weather holds, we could get a lot more,” Grindle said.
In addition to the chowder cook-off, Sunday’s venue included beer tasting and wine tasting, and several local businesses offered samples of their foods inside the large greenhouse and on the Mainescape grounds. Backing that up was a variety of musical offerings, including jazz from George Stevens Academy students, a ukulele band and reggae.
“We’ve tried to do things differently this year,” Grindle said. “We’ve added different things in an effort to bring in different people to see what we’re up to.”
In addition to attracting people to the town and highlighting local businesses, the festival also is the Chamber’s largest fundraiser, which Grindle said helps support the Chamber mission without raising membership dues.
The chowder cook-off, now in its second year, featured a dozen chowder recipes prepared by local chefs and amateur cooks, and offered festival-goers a chance to sample some of the recipes on display. Among their choices were lobster, clam and haddock chowders, along with combinations such has haddock and finnan haddie; lobster, crawfish and scallops; and fish and sea urchin.
“I like tradition,” cook-off judge Denny Robertson, Blue Hill’s fire chief, said of his criteria for judging. “But they’ve got an array of different kinds of chowder here today. So I’ll have to go with presentation, consistency and flavor.”
Fellow judges Kim Bianco of Bianco Family Catering, and Emily Burnham, food editor at the Bangor Daily News, agreed that chowder consistency was a key factor in a good chowder.
Burnham also stressed that a good balance of ingredients was important as well.
“I want the seafood flavor to come out,” she said. “I don’t want the other stuff to overpower that.”
In the end, the judges agreed on the fish and urchin chowder, prepared by Charlotte Crowder Shaughnessy, a medical writer and editor from Brooksville.
Shaughnessy said the recipe was an experimental one using urchin. She recently tried her hand at a scallop-urchin souffle, and the chowder was her latest culinary foray.
She used fresh urchins that she harvested at Jones Point in Brooksville.
“We can usually just pick them off the rocks, but the tide didn’t cooperate,” she said. “So, I was out there in my wetsuit. I used a long-handle shop ladle to reach down and get them.”
As soon as the judging was finished, chowder lovers lined up to try the samples.
Catherine Van Dusen of Sedgwick had her eye on one chowder in particular. Her daughter was one of the contestants.
“I know which one she is — it’s my crockpot,” she said.
The chowder is a reflection of the area, according to Van Dusen.
“It really is a taste of Maine,” she said. “People love to cook fish, and there are so many people here involved in the fishing industry.”
Goes with chowder on B1
Crowder Chowder with a Twist
Charlotte Crowder Shaugnessy of Brooksville; the winning recipe from the second annual Chowder Cookoff at the Foliage Food and Wine Festival in Blue Hill
For the chowder base:
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
3 cups chicken broth
½ teaspoon salt
2 medium potatoes, diced
1½ pounds haddock
½ cup heavy cream
A grinding of white pepper
For the sea urchin cream:
Roe from 6 to 8 sea urchins
¼ cup heavy cream
1. Saute onions in melted butter for 20 minutes over very low heat.
2. Pour chicken broth into pot and bring to a boil.
3. Add salt and potatoes and simmer over a medium heat for 10 minutes.
4. Add fish and simmer 2 minutes until fish becomes opaque.
5. Remove pot from heat and add ½ cup heavy cream.
6. Whisk sea urchin into ¼ cup heavy cream, then press the mixture through a fine sieve with the back of a wooden spoon.
7. Add sea urchin cream to chowder base.