This past weekend’s adventures at the Newport Chowder-Off led us to wonder… What do people mean when they say chowder? I mean, some restaurants there served “chowder” there that was barely distinguishable from soup. Why call some things chowder and not others? If you have no standards, how can you judge the quality?
I asked ChowderGirl and her answer is “It is with clams and potatoes and thick milk.”
ChowderBoy was grumpy and said “STOP TALKING TO ME.”
Turning back to ChowderGirl, I asked her what then, do we say about Manhattan Clam Chowder? Blank stare. Her brain must have done some short circuiting circulus in probando…
Real chowder is creamy!
Because I am THAT MOM, now we have to research it. I just default to “it’s that stuff we eat at the cape” and therefore my kids think the same thing…we need a real answer.
Without editorializing:
Random House dictionary says it is “a thick soup or stew made of clams, fish, or vegetables, with potatoes, onions, and other ingredients and seasonings.”
Houghton Mifflin’s dictionary adds:
1. A thick soup containing fish or shellfish, especially clams, and vegetables, such as potatoes and onions, in a milk or tomato base.
2. A soup similar to this seafood dish: corn chowder.
Britannica.com says “in North American cuisine, hearty soup usually containing fish or shellfish, especially clams. The word chowder is a corruption of the French chaudiere (“cauldron”), and chowder may have originated among Breton fishermen who brought the custom to Newfoundland, whence it spread to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and New England. The standard New England-style chowder contains fish or shellfish, salt pork, onions, potatoes, and milk. Manhattan-style chowder replaces the milk with tomatoes. Eighteenth-century chowders were more varied; meat or poultry chowders were made, and wine, spices, herbs, cider, and other flavourings were often added. Pounded common crackers or ship biscuits served as thickening. In the Southern and Midwestern United States, fresh sweet corn (maize) often replaces the clams in chowder. Conch chowder is a specialty of Key West, Fla.”
And now with editorializing…
Okay, I get it. Chowder is thicker than soup, thinner than stew. It may or may not have fish or corn in it. It probably has vegetables in it. What does this even mean?
When I say chowder, I mean New England Clam Chowder. I don’t mean salmon and corn chowder. I don’t mean fish stew. I don’t mean rice and beans in a cup. I mean quahog based, creamy, potato-laden, seasoned, fresh, tasty chowder. And that is what ChowderKids mean too.
And we absolutely do not mean Manhattan clam chowder. That stuff will kill you.
Now, we’re all willing to try new chowders. But unlike that shortcut kind of way that ChowderAuntie says Coke and means all carbonated beverages in a can, we mean New England clam chowder when we say chowder.
In other words, to rip off Justice Potter Stewart…“We can’t define it, but we know it when we eat it.”
