Seafood, Salem, Seafood

This sign is accurate.  Woodman's of Essex has been a fixture of every vacation we've ever taken here.  We would get clam steamers and go sit in the back at a picnic table, feeding them to a very enthusiastic Teddy (and before her, Freddy).  Today we went for lunch.  My wife was skeptical.  Perhaps she still is, but me and my sister still love this place with all our hearts!  

This is where the amazing food comes from.  

And here it is!  You've got a fish sandwich, a lobster roll, a pint of fried scallops, and a pint of clams.  There's also corn on the cob here which my sister's boyfriend ordered.  I think that marks the first time I've ever seen anyone order something that wasn't seafood and/or fried here!  

Woodman's needs to open up a museum and showcase their original fryers from a hundred years ago.  I've never seen a fryer from the early 1900s.  I'd like to pay my respects!  Also, Chubby Woodman, you always have been and always will be one of my personal heroes.

This is the exterior of the Salem Witch House.  We also went on a tour of the Salem Witch Museum and the House of Seven Gables, but those places don't permit photography of any kind.  Nevertheless, I actually think I preferred the Salem Witch House most of all.  It sheds light on what life was like back in 1692 in a way that the other sites don't.  It's amazing to learn about how people lived so far before modern science.  Also, the Witch House is the last structure in Salem that was actually around during the witch trials.

This is a dining room table.

An extremely large fireplace.  Evidently, women would cook multiple items in here at a time.  Because women also had to wear long cloth dresses, they would frequently soak the hems in water so as to avoid catching on fire.

A closeup of the fire place.

People often think the low ceilings in old houses like this are a sign of people being a lot shorter several hundred years ago.  In reality, people were basically the same height as they are today.  Lower ceilings, however, made for rooms that could be much more easily heated.

Textiles and weaving were a major part of the day back in the late 1600s.  Here are some pictures of the devices used towards this end.

What follows are a bunch of pictures of signs hanging in the Witch House that talk a bit about the Witch trials, as well as life back in those days.  Even if you aren't the kind of person who likes to read these things, however, I beseech you to read the texts that describe some of the medicinal practices common to this time period.  

I really liked that they included this.  In 2017, visiting Salem makes a person all too aware of the parallels between the Witch hysteria prevalent in this country almost a hundred years before it WAS this country.  I appreciate their willingness to actually give voice to this.

Here we get to the stuff that blew my mind.  If I knew about this before today, I somehow forgot it.  I shall not do so again.

"A pure nest" must be established in the woman's body.  Good lord.

Corpse Medicine in the Colonial Era

A cure for epilepsy?  Combine the brains and other organs of a recently dead man with a 'spirit of wine', and blend thoroughly.

Drink blood for strength, vitality or epilepsy.

Human fat as a cure for gout and rheumatism.

Powdered bone (or, alternately, bone juice) prescribed for accidental injury.

Skull Moss.  Leave a dead person's head laying out until moss grows on it, and then collect head moss for use in staunching blood flow.

Whew!  Having read these things, I think it must be a testament to the human spirit that we somehow managed to survive through times such as these.

After this tour, we walked around near the Salem wharf.

A lovely garden festooned with pumpkins.

And then there's this.  The most well-decorated Halloween alley in the whole world.  Every year, this place erects something similar to this.  I was so happy to see that they had continued the tradition after all these years.

The sunny weather perhaps diminishes the effect to an extent! 

Another tradition.  My mother has taken a picture of me lying in front of a grave in this cemetery every time we've visited it.  This year, my wife was so kind as to take the picture.

We went to dinner at a fairly new place in Salem called Ledger.  My sister found it, and she deserves an award.  This is raw salmon with radishes and cucumbers.  Delicious and surprisingly peppery!

This is a Deviled Egg Nest.  It features ham, a poached egg, these fried potato things, and a chili.  Amazing!

An amazing charcuterie board.  All the meats are cured in house.

This.  Oh man.  Chipped Beef Dip.  Cheddar, beef, pickled chilies, and these English muffins.  We ordered additional bread in order to clean every trace of the dip out of the bowl.

I am a big fan of carrots.  These particular carrots feature pecans, Morningwood maple syrup, cottage cheese, chervil, and chilies.

My entree:  Lobster Spaghetti!  It was amazing.  It featured corn and chilies, which gave it a little bit of a spicy thing going on.  

My sister and her boyfriend got these two giant fish stuffed with thyme.  Her boyfriend impressed our server with his ability to de-bone a fish.  I was impressed by his humble demeanor.  If I was a chef and a server complimented my de-boning technique, I'd very likely mention that I was a chef.  He just said, "Yeah, I did pretty good I guess".  Nice!

A brownie sundae!  Get this: the vanilla ice cream was smoked!  We loved it.  Never had smoked ice cream before.

This picture sucks because it was the second dessert put down and I was really, really excited to start eating my brownie sundae.  It's a chocolate cake topped with caramel popcorn and ice cream.  Also very good!

Tomorrow my wife and I part ways with my sister and her boyfriend and go to Brazil.  I'm really going to miss them.  We had a terrific time, and my sister and I loved introducing our loved ones to a place that means so much to both of us.  We are already talking about what trip we are all going to go on next!

Speaking of Brazil, I am not entirely sure when the next blog post will be.  It will probably not be on Friday, because we are going to be in transit from 4:15 PM tomorrow to 11:30 AM the following day.  We are flying from Boston to Atlanta, and then to Sao Paulo, and finally to Goiania.  In all likelihood, the next post will be posted on Saturday morning.  See you all on the other side of the equator!