I have a confession to make. As recently as a few weeks ago, I
had no idea what cioppino was. Then a flier for the Gilroy High
Cioppino Feed was placed on my desk by my editor.
I have a confession to make. As recently as a few weeks ago, I had no idea what cioppino was. Then a flier for the Gilroy High Cioppino Feed was placed on my desk by my editor.
“I don’t know what this means,” I said blankly.
I was offered a pronunciation and a brief synopsis about the feed. I was still confused, yet intrigued.
But after this weekend, it’s safe to say I’m officially cioppino–savvy.
The annual Cioppino Feed and Dance took place Saturday night at Christopher Ranch. In its 25th year, the event raised an estimated $20,000 for Gilroy High athletics, according to athletic director Jack Daley.
Over 1,000 people dined on salad, crab cioppino and (shockingly) garlic bread, all served by hardworking volunteers made up of several generations of Gilroy High coaches, teachers, parents and administrators.
But before I was an attendee, I was a volunteer.
It was in helping prep for the event Friday that I realized the dinner and dance is really the culmination of an impressive preparation process that’s based on lots of tradition.
On Friday, about 30 coaches, teachers, administrators and student volunteers gathered to be social and separate the 3,000 pounds of crab ordered for the event. If you haven’t seen 3,000 pounds of crab all at once, you need to. This was the scene: In the parking lot of Christopher Ranch, three 20–foot long parallel tables were piled with frozen crabs, where we volunteers gathered to break the crustaceans into smaller portions after they thawed a bit. To aid in the thawing process, a couple people watered down the blocks of crab with garden hoses. Note to future volunteers: Stay on the elevated side of the table. Your shoes will thank you.
Being a rookie (and Midwestern), I had no idea what “preparing crab” was going to entail. Daley had offered me one piece of advice: “Don’t wear shoes that you want to wear again.” So I didn’t. But he should have included “pants” in his warning as well.
Before we began separating the crab, former Gilroy wrestling coach Chuck Ogle started telling me about the “olden days” of the Cioppino Feed. They used to get the crabs shipped whole, which meant volunteers had to gut, clean and separate each and every crab. All in all, it was a pretty horrible experience.
Now, the crab arrives gutted, cleaned, frozen and somewhat separated, making the job much more enjoyable.
My other task of the day was to stir the cioppino sauce. Daley showed me into a cooled warehouse, which felt like the world’s largest refrigerator. There sat 16 vats of sauce, 300 gallons in all, waiting to cool. Daley told me Carl Swank, the longtime cook for the Cioppino Feed, began preparing the sauce, a spicy mixture of tomato sauces, onions, celery, bell peppers, whitefish, Italian seasonings and spices, at 5am that morning. It took about seven hours to finish, and after that, needed to be stirred every half hour to help it cool. Daley handed me a large wooden oar–looking thing and I got to stirring. This is the volunteer job you want. Not only does the cioppino sauce smell a lot better than thawing crab, but if you’re lucky, you get to sample it.
At the feed on Saturday, I saw it all come together. I don’t know how many volunteers actually worked the event, but the service was unbelievable. Much thanks to all of you. If I was a restaurateur, I’d recruit my wait staff from the Cioppino Feed. And to those in Gilroy who have never been to the feed, I urge you to take part in the tradition next year. It’s the one time and place where its acceptable to yell for your food.
