Is Snail Salad a"regionalism" (or even a word?)

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   "Snail salad" and "stuffies" deserve to be in the next volume of DARE, just as much as "New York System" (over 50 years off on the dating) and "May breakfast" (about 100 years off on the dating) and "doughboys" and "johnnycake" and "cabinet" were in previous DARE volumes.  "Snail salad" wasn't mentioned by John Mariani in his ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK, and I just pointed out again that he missed some Americanisms.
   "Snail salad" also deserves serious consideration for the OED and the food book that David Barnhart is writing (wherever he is).
    "Lexicon inflator"?  I have to respond to this?
   DARE and others can use my work for free.  I spent my own money to take a train up to Providence.  It cost me about $200, or about 20% of my lifetime earnings. Maybe sometime, somewhere, somehow, SOMEONE CAN THROW SOME KIND WORDS MY WAY?  Maybe give me credit for my own work once in a while?  Maybe I have to work much harder for a few more decades?
   Do I have to waste my time comparing and contrasting "snail salad" with "lexicon inflator"?
   This is from the Sterns, authors of ROADFOOD and experts on American regional cuisine (taken from the earliest article in the Dow Jones database):



LIFESTYLE / FOOD
A TASTE OF AMERICA
A QUIRKY OCEAN STATE SPECIALTY: RED, WHITE, AND PERFECT
By Jane and Michael Stern, Syndicated Columnists, {C} 1987, Jane and Michael Stern

08/05/1987
The Record, Northern New Jersey

For a little state, Rhode Island has a mighty big cuisine. In fact, there are few places anywhere in the United States with as vivid a sense of culinary self.
First there is the actual matter of size. The classic Rhode Island meal is gigantic, whether it is all-you-can-eat chicken (accompanied by mountains of swirly cinnamon rolls) or an oceanside shore dinner of chowder, clam cakes, steamers, lobster, fish, and watermelon. At Archie's Tavern in Pawtucket, prime rib is listed on the menu as a "Neanderthal cut." Order pork chops, and you get three. The Boathouse Restaurant in Warwick features the "Eat 'Til You Drop" breakfast special: They keep bringing eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, pancakes, French toast, potatoes, and coffee until you tell them to stop.

It is not just huge portions that make eating in Rhode Island so exhilarating. Athough Ocean State cuisine is Yankee in spirit, many of the specialties are unique, even quirky. Snail salad, johnnycakes, "New York system" hot dogs, "cabinets" (known to the rest of the world as milkshakes), stuffies (stuffed quahog clams), and clam cakes: No one else makes any of these quite the way they're made in Rhode Island.
And that is the way the locals like it. Rhode Islanders are feisty when it comes to eating; they relish arguments. They will tell you, for instance, that a johnnycake (the cloud-light pancake for which the state is best known) is good only if it is made with ultrafine locally stone-ground white cornmeal. Furthermore, they debate among themselves whether johnnycakes should be plate-wide and paper-thin (as at Commons Lunch in Little Compton) or silver dollar size and pillowy (as at the Dovecrest Restaurant in Arcadia).

Swordfish is another issue. Everybody knows that the finest swordfish are caught off Block Island. But netting 'em isn't good enough for Rhode Island seafood aficionados. They explain that if a fish is caught in a net, it gets dragged in the water for hours before it's pulled up. During that time, the flesh starts to soften. So they insist upon harpooned swordfish only, which are hauled in and dressed immediately.

If you really want to engage an Ocean Stater in a culinary colloquy, bring up the issue of chowder. North of Rhode Island, chowder hounds insist that it be white and creamy. South, you'll find partisans of the creamless red variety (Manhattan style). Rhode Island has its very own style of chowder _ a creamless, tomato-less ocean broth containing little more than clams, potatoes, and the smack of salt pork. To confuse the matter even more, most local restaurants offer all three kinds, and some of the finest shore dinner halls sell a fourth, made with both cream and tomatoes!

A fine place to investigate the chowder phenomenon, as well as Rhode Island gastronomy in all its summertime glory, is the Rocky Point Park Shore Dinner Hall. Here is shoreline eating at its happiest.

Rocky Point is an amusement park. Its Chowderdome is an immense pavilion capable of serving 20,000 people a day at tables as long as bowling alleys. It is noisy and brusque, and it smells of cool ocean breezes and hot corn on the cob. Chowder is the heart and soul of every meal, whether you come for only chowder (accompanied by puffy clam cakes) or a full-scale shore dinner, from steamer clams and drawn butter to Indian pudding for dessert. The chowder they serve is the weird, fourth kind _ not New England, not Manhattan, not even the official clear Rhode Island variety. It is more like an ocean-scented cream of tomato soup.

We have named our version Chowderdome Chowder in honor of Rocky Point. It's great with any seafood, from sophisticated fish to tuna salad sandwiches.

CHOWDERDOME CHOWDER

1/4 pound salt pork, diced 1 onion, chopped 2 cups potatoes, diced 1 1/2 cups boiling water 2 cups chopped clams 1/2 cup chopped stewed tomatoes 1/8 teaspoon baking soda 1 cup cream

Salt and pepper 8 saltine crackers 4 tablespoons butter

Fry pork in skillet until crisp. Remove pork with slotted spoon and reserve. Fry onion in fat until soft. Pour fat and onion into stockpot. Add potatoes. Add water. Simmer until potatoes soften, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Add clams. Mix tomatoes and baking soda and add to pot. Simmer 5 minutes. Stir in cream and heat to simmer, but do not boil. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Place saltines at bottom of 4 soup bowls. Pour in soup. Top each serving with pat of butter, and garnish (if desired) with salt pork cracklings.


DRAWING - WILLIAM HOGAN / THE RECORD - Rocky Point Shore Dinner Hall.