Yesterday we reported on Gordie Nash’s Arcadia winning the Seaweed Soup Cup. What some folks may not realize is that there is really is Seaweed Soup. An anonymous Golden Gate YC insider, named below, leaked the recipe to our source at current Cup-holding club Richmond YC, who passed it along to us.

“As promised - not a lot of secret ingredients, but really good!

“Riviera Minestrone Soup [a canned soup from Birdseye]

Linguisca, chopped and stir fried.

Add spinach until wilted [preferably fresh - plays the role of the seaweed]

Add Snappy Tom to taste.

Serve with warm bread or rolls.”

- Mont Mc Millen, GGYC Race Deck Director

“Kind of wondering if the secret ingredient, Snappy Tom, is still in the

supermarkets?” wondered our source at RYC. “And I'm sure Manny would have used organic spinach or at least Popeye brand canned spinach from Watsonville. Not sure about the linguisca - no doubt picked up at Lucca's in the Marina.

“I can just imagine Manuel Fagundes walking over the bar and asking Mac McGraw - who was pouring one for Jack Schmale (the professionally soused Dean of Bay Area Yachting Journalists and inventor of the phrase ‘IOR Battlewagons’) - for a can or three of Snappy Tom so he could make up a batch of Portuguese Seaweed Soup for the cold, wet midwinter crowd coming off the water.

“Snap forward 30 years. The bar hasn't moved; drink prices are up. Mac, Manny, and Jack are long gone. Across from the bar on the polished silver ewer you can read names like Intrepid, Genesta and Gretel II. Seems like a warp in the space-time continuum.

“Did hear that the Mayor touched the Auld Mug and was cured of sex addiction. And meanwhile, walking past Brand X, I could hear the sounds of luxury boxes being constructed in anticipation of future Cup races.” We don’t think our source is referring to the Seaweed Soup Cup.

Don’t ask us to explain all of the above, but we can elucidate a bit. The official name of the Golden Gate Midwinters is the Manuel Fagundes Seaweed Soup Regatta. They still serve the Seaweed Soup (along with free hot dogs). Picture a packed room full of motley crew and their skippers chowing down on pasta with plastic picnic forks while two guys in white gloves and tailored suits stand guard over the elegant and statuesque oldest trophy in sports.

Manuel Fagundes was a Portuguese chef in the old days at GGYC. The midwinter series is named for him (or his soup), and this year’s series was the 39th.

For the serious stuff, see www.ggyc.com.

An update on the soup from our ‘source’, who has done further research:

“Located two places with Snappy Tom (Del Monte Foods makes it). Nob Hill carries it. Got Linguica (from Portugal no less) at the Berkeley Bowl.

However the main ingredient, Riviera Minestrone Soup, from Birdseye Foods, is on longer on the shelves

“Well, maybe the publicizing of this recipe might cause a stampede. One market I checked said there was a person looking for it. The clerk didn't

say how recently. It is possible someone saw the recipe on your website and went looking.”