The Ingredients of a Life: Chef Perrin H. Long ’77

Chef Perrin H. Long ’77 shares the flavors and food memories that have shaped his life.

Chef Perrin H. Long '77 is interested in food memories. One bite of a particular food—or even the scent of a dish—can catapult him back in time, reminding him of the people and places that have been special to him. That, for Long, is the power of food, and why, at 68, he’s still thinking about and preparing those perfect, nostalgic bites.

“I have strong connections to flavors and sounds,” he said. “I think food memories are pretty interesting, and everybody has them. It’s that old cliché of being at your grandparents' house or your parents' house, and it's Sunday morning, and the smell of bacon is wafting up the stairs. And when you smell it later in life, it brings you back to that time.”

A 1981 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), Long first experienced the fast, frenetic pace of professional kitchens on Nantucket when a chef took a chance on him. Since then, he’s worked in numerous kitchens across the country, earned a master’s in gastronomy from Boston University, and spent 22 years as a culinary instructor at Portsmouth High School and Southern New Hampshire University before retiring in 2017.

Long lives in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, where he tends a massive garden and keeps a foot in the culinary world as a private chef. This November, he’ll kick off Governor's Passion in Practice series with a cooking demonstration via Zoom, sharing his approach to cooking: “Fresh ingredients cooked well,” he says, “and presented in an attractive manner.”

Here are nine ingredients that offer a glimpse into Long’s culinary journey, many of which capture some of his most treasured food memories:

Blackberries

My grandparents lived on Chappaquiddick. My grandfather would take me and my sister to pick blackberries after dinner. Of course, my mom was worried because he probably had a couple of scotches or bourbons, but he would load us into his Willys Jeep and drive down the sandy roads to where he knew there were good blackberry bushes.

Julia Child’s Duck à l'Orange

My parents and grandparents used to take me out to eat at restaurants, and I began to develop an appreciation for good food. In about seventh grade, I started cooking at home. We had a good family friend who mentored me in French cuisine. I got out Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I was making a recipe for duck à l'orange. I took the duck out of the oven—it was in a glass Pyrex pan. The recipe said, “Deglaze the pan with orange juice." Well, not thinking and being a novice, I poured the cold orange juice into the hot pan with the duck grease, and the pan shattered. Duck grease went all over the top of the stove, and there were shards of glass everywhere. So that meal didn't happen that particular evening.

Roast Beef Sub

At Governor’s, we could go to dinner, but afterward we would get hungry. We’d put in a lot of orders with Mike’s Subs. A roast beef sub with chopped-up pickles and rare roast beef with mayonnaise on a sub roll instantly takes me back to Eames dorm.

Scallop Terrine

When I was in about eleventh grade, my mom took me to a restaurant in Boston called Joseph's, which was the sister restaurant to Locke-Ober. A gentleman recognized my mother from her college days. His name was David Wells, and he was the general manager of Locke-Ober. My mother embarrassed me terribly because she said, “My son is interested in becoming a chef.” I wanted to crawl under the table. But he said, “If you’re ever looking for a job, come see me.” A year later, after graduating from Govs, I dropped out of Ithaca College after one semester and submitted my application to the CIA. I went back to Boston and called up David Wells.

He said, “You really have no experience in restaurants whatsoever, so I think my cooks and chefs down in the kitchen would probably chew you up in good order.” He picked up the phone and called someone who owed him a favor at a restaurant in Nantucket, where I could work for the summer. One damp, cold weekend in April, I flew down to Nantucket for 24 bucks on Cape Air, and I started working at Languedoc.

The owner and the chef, Neil, gave me great license to explore and do interesting dishes. I remember making a scallop terrine flavored with sage. It was the first time I’d worked with sage as an herb.

Cumin

When I was at the CIA, I interned at a restaurant in Centerville, Massachusetts, called the Village Corners Inn. They had a little food shack down at the beach, and they were making and selling chili. I was told to go make this recipe for chili. I'm adding the cumin, and I don't think I had ever had it. I was unfamiliar with that spice. Now, whenever I eat it, it automatically takes me back to that time.

Pâté

Pâté was a huge thing at the Languedoc. I learned how to break down whole veal legs into different muscles. From the scraps, we would make pâté. One day, I said to the head chef, “Instead of using all these little pâté pans, why don't we just get a big, six-inch-deep hotel pan, line it with bacon, and then make a whole pâté in that? We can cut it into loaves." And he said, “Well, that's a good idea.” I got a lot of freedom to explore.

The fast pace of the kitchen was almost addictive in nature, and I liked the camaraderie. When the service would start and the tickets started coming in, I’d get into a rhythm. My daughter owns a bakery and a café in Wolfeboro, and I used to go help her in the kitchen. But a couple of years ago, she had an insanely busy day, and the tickets were coming in, and I found that at 67 it completely stressed me out.

Biscotti

Teaching comes naturally to me, and I like mentoring kids on motivation and having respect for the chef’s uniform. It’s gratifying to teach them different techniques that they didn't know or introduce them to making certain things. When I taught high school students how to make biscotti, most of them thought biscotti came from a factory and that the only way to get it was to buy a package. So I enjoyed teaching them how to make it themselves and watching them say, “Oh, wow, this is really easy.”

Fettuccine Alfredo

As a private chef, I cook for an Italian gentleman and his family on the weekends in Wolfeboro. He likes Italian food more than anything. He’ll tolerate it if I cook something else, but he prefers food that closely resembles Italian. Recently, for a dinner for 24 people, I did a variation on chicken schnitzel. I pounded the chicken breast, put coppa ham on one side of it, along with fresh chives, fresh Italian parsley, and Parmesan cheese. Then I dredged it in flour, egg wash, and panko breadcrumbs, pan-fried it, and served it with fettuccine Alfredo.

It took me three times last summer to learn exactly how he likes his fettuccine Alfredo cooked. He walked into the kitchen and told me he likes it very al dente. When you’re a chef, you love praise, but you also love being in the hospitality business and pleasing people. And part of the culture is having a thick skin, learning from your mistakes, and being as open-minded as possible.

Green beans

For dinner tonight, I’ve got a bunch of green beans in the garden that I need to pick. And I’ve got some beautiful globe basil, plus a few more zucchinis and a bunch of shishito peppers. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it all yet, but I get the greatest joy from getting fresh food right out of the garden. My approach is food prepared well, presented in a very attractive manner, and not overly fussy.