Great Cooks : Local Boy Makes Good Cioppino

Jay Frierman shows off the ingredients that are going into his cioppino: tomatoes, herbs, clams, shrimp, spider crab, sheepshead(the fish). “All local,” he points out, “except the clams.”

Even the spider crab? “Oh, sure. We have spider crab around here--I used to fish for them off the Santa Monica Pier.”

Jay and Bea, his wife of 40 years, were both born in Los Angeles, Bea in Boyle Heights and Jay on Bunker Hill--”at the service entrance of the Music Center,” as he puts it. They think of themselves as people who’ve had to work to develop a knowledge of food because they were native Angelenos, and it’s true--Los Angeles was no gourmet capital when they were growing up, even if you could fish for spider crab. The restaurants they remember were mostly delis or steakhouses.

But Jay in particular did get interested in food, and throughout their married life he has been the one who cooked for company. When he took early retirement 10 years ago, Bea was still working, and he decided to become the family’s full-time cook, as he still is. “I lucked out,” says Bea, giving him an approving glance.

Frierman’s cooking career began in the Air Force in World War II. It gave him his first taste of European cuisine and his first cooking job.

“I found it’s possible to be unemployed in the military,” he recalls, “and if you’re unemployed, they’re liable to send you some place you don’t want to be, so I had to come up with a job for myself. I had noticed that the cooks seemed to be a happy bunch of guys, so I signed up for that.”

His first assignment was to carve up 24 turkeys for Thanksgiving; when he was done, he had learned a lot about avian anatomy. He is now the official turkey carver for a group of friends who have shared Thanksgiving for the last 25 years.

After the war he went to college on the G.I. Bill, and at Berkeley he fell in with a group of fairly serious cooks who also made weekly pilgrimages across the Bay to San Francisco (Berkeley didn’t become an important restaurant town until the ‘70s) in order to enjoy the restaurants.

He was a historian but became interested in archeology and went on to teach it for 12 years. “And I never took a single class in archeology,” he recalls with wry satisfaction. “The archeologists never forgave me for that.” The Friermans’ cozy Santa Monica apartment is spotted with bits and pieces from archeological digs.

Going out on digs meant new gastronomic discoveries in Baja California, the Near East and Europe, fueling Frierman’s interest in ethnic cuisines. After years in the Near East, he worked a dig in Rome and had a revelation: “Rome was the place to work, not out in the middle of nowhere--there was a great little trattoria just a hundred yards from the dig.”

A 1980 dig in Napa Valley was the opportunity of a lifetime. In his spare time he’d drive around in a half-ton truck and check out all the vineyards.

At dinner recently with Bea, their daughter Gina and her husband and small child, Jay produces a bottle of 1978 Foppiano Cabernet he’d recently found in the recesses of his pantry wine “cellar.” It goes quite well with the remains of a crisp, semi-pickled vegetable relish and Frierman’s personal version of cioppino, made without oil or salt.

“We started out doing the whole French thing,” he says, “with demi-glace and chateaubriand sauce on the chateaubriand. But now Bea and I are bucking 70, so we’re practically vegetarians.” He is a believer in replacing fat and salt with herbs and spices, of which his pantry has an impressive collection (not to mention oddments such as two sacks of Iranian rice he has been aging for 25 years).

And the meal is as healthful as you could wish until the end, when Bea takes over--Jay has never been a dessert maker. She produces a trifle layered with Bavarian cream and apricot puree: the family’s favorite dessert, but for obvious reasons Bea doesn’t make it much any more. “Everything else in the meal is low-fat,” says Jay, “but that one’s a menace.”

“I use local fish--the fresher, the better,” Frierman says. “But almost anything will work, including frozen fish. The classic San Francisco cioppino calls for Dungeness crab, but Dungeness is usually tired by the time it gets to Los Angeles. Our local rock crabs are good, and the ugly spider crab is great. The use of fresh tomatoes is the most crucial factor.”

Frierman likes to serve the Cioppino with sourdough French bread, lightly dressed green salad and red Zinfandel.

CIOPPINO

1 large Dungeness or spider crab, cracked, or 2 small local rock crabs, cracked

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

3 large onions, chopped

4 cloves garlic, chopped

3 pounds Roma tomatoes, peeled, processed in blender

1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce, preferably no salt

1 cup wine, red or white

1 cup water

2 tablespoons minced Italian parsley

1 to 2 tablespoons minced fresh oregano

1 to 2 tablespoons minced fresh basil

1 to 2 tablespoons minced fresh rosemary

1 to 2 tablespoons minced fresh thyme

1 California bay leaf or 2 imported bay leaves

1 pound local white-fleshed fish such as sheep’s head, rockfish or ling cod

1 pound clams

1 pound shrimp, preferably Santa Barbara Ridgeback

1 pound squid, preferably Catalina

Salt, pepper

Cook crab in boiling water 15 minutes, or until pink. Remove, allow to cool and refrigerate.

Heat olive oil in pan and saute onions until golden. Add garlic and stir to avoid burning. Add Roma tomatoes and cook until raw flavor is gone. Add tomato sauce, wine and water. Bring to boil. Add parsley, oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme and bay leaf.

Add fish and cook until just barely done, about 10 minutes. Remove and reserve.

Add clams and cook until they begin to open. Add shrimp and squid to pan with cooked fish and crab. Cook until done, about 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (If more herbs and pepper are added, less or no salt is needed.) Makes 8 servings.

Each serving contains about:

290 calories; 498 mg sodium; 269 mg cholesterol; 6 grams fat; 11 grams carbohydrates; 41 grams protein; .8 gram fiber; 20% calories from fat.

This light relish comes from Frierman’s friend Col. Ed Lasker. “He’s close to 80, and he says he got it from his mother. “

COL. ED LASKER’S ITALIAN VEGETABLE RELISH

2 to 3 carrots, peeled

1 large stalk celery

1 head cauliflower

2 to 3 large cloves garlic, peeled

2 to 3 dried Japanese chiles

1 (9-ounce) jar Italian peperoncini, drained

1 (6-ounce) can California whole, pitted black olives, drained

7 ounces Spanish green olives, drained

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

Cut carrots and celery into matchsticks. Separate cauliflower florets and place in non-metal bowl (use glass or ceramic). Add garlic, chiles, peperoncini, black and green olives, olive oil and vinegar.

Marinate 3 to 4 hours at room temperature, then refrigerate until ready to serve. Keeps 3 to 4 days refrigerated. Makes 8 cups or 10 to 12 servings.