“Ode to Conger Chowder”

Chilean bouillabaisse is called caldillo de congrio, and though less pretentious and demanding, it is equally aphrodisiac and delicious. As my mother said, it really wasn’t worth all that effort of traveling clear to Marseilles. You don’t need five kinds of fish for this caldillo, only a good-size hunk of conger, the enormous eel that inhabits cold seas, and the good right hand of a humble cook or the sensual verses of a lover of the good life. This is the recipe of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda:

In the storm-tossed

Chilean

sea

lives the rosy conger,

giant eel

of snowy flesh.

And in Chilean

stewpots

along the coast

was born the chowder,

thick and succulent,

a boon to man.

You bring the conger, skinned,

to the kitchen

(its mottled skin slips off

like a glove,

leaving the

grape of the sea

exposed to the world),

naked,

the tender eel

glistens,

prepared

to serve our appetites.

Now

you take

garlic,

first, caress

that precious

ivory,

smell

its irate fragrance,

then

blend the minced garlic

with onion

and tomato

until the onion

is the color of gold.

Meanwhile

steam

our regal

ocean prawns,

and when

they are tender,

when the savor is

set in a sauce

combining the liquors

of the ocean

and the clear water

released from the light of the onion,

then

you add the eel

that it may be immersed in glory,

that it may steep in the oils

of the pot,

shrink and be saturated.

Now all that remains is to

drop a dollop of cream

into the concoction,

a heavy rose,

then slowly

deliver

the treasure to the flame,

until in the chowder

are warmed

the essences of Chile,

and to the table

come, newly wed,

the savors

of land and sea,

that in this dish

you may know heaven.