Chowdah, Soup of the Cauldron

There’s soup and there’s stew. Then there’s chowder. Ask anyone and not only will a vivid distinction pop into their head but probably nostalgia to go along. This is the iconic magical food that can transport those of advanced years to childhood memories and warm the youth on a cold winter day.

Chowder is everywhere in New England and as mainstay as mom’s apple pie or Vermont cheese. It spans the nation, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Chowder is quite possibly the quintessential and iconic soup/stew of New England, an official staple with lobster coming in a short second. It is synonymous with fishing, harbors, sailing, and oyster crackers. It is a nurturing bowl of goodness when the weather is dreary or on winter days when you’re chilled to the bone. Whether you’re on the coast or inland, chowder can be found in many restaurants, all of them boasting they have the best and a few claiming to be the originators of specific varieties.

Having been grown and raised on various chowders in my beloved corner of the nation, I wondered if perhaps there’s more to this bewitching concoction than most people realize. What I didn’t expect was to find cauldrons part of the equation. Yes, you read that correctly, cauldrons. And what if I told you that some recipes call for such ingredients as lemons, beer, asparagus and pickles?

Like many other foods, from marinara sauce to classic French dishes, chowder has a serious following of purists and traditionalists, the difference being that one group adheres to authentic and the other more along the lines of what’s commonly accepted. Tomato, tomahtoe, chowder, chowdah. Even the pronunciation of the word can be a dead giveaway of where a person resides or grew up.

An assumption of mine was asking any New Englander what chowder is and they’ll tell you matter-of-factly: it’s thick and creamy, white and rich, with clams, originating in New England, specifically Massachusetts, and if it isn’t white then it’s clear with clam juice. Others will say more savory than sweet, clear and thin with clams, or red with tomato. While inquiring friends, only a handful mentioned fish and four mentioned corn. Chicken had no votes, so perhaps I’m the only person who uses leftovers in this fashion.

The thesaurus will provide you a list of synonyms, such as bisque, fish soup, hodge-podge, puree, pottage, mulligatawny, and several others, all of which refer to clam chowder. And much like the English language, with our love of words that sound the same but spelled differently with different meanings, these definitions can belong to things other than chowder. Gumbo and bouillabaisse, for example, are listed, but any aficionado, from Nawthun pahts or south, will tell you there is a distinct difference and none of them come to an intersection on the chowder culinary highway except they are all considered soups and stews…sort of. 

There seems to be no end to the possibilities of combinations, but not every chowder will meet the standard by which all are measured, nor will every chowder raise the bar without tripping and falling into another category. My mind goes immediately to bisque, the major difference being bisque is smooth and creamy while chowder is typically chunky, but many will lump them into the same category having a seafood component.

Then there is the unending debate of which is “right or wrong”. For baseball fans we have the Subway Series between Boston and New York, and no New England rivalry would be complete if we didn’t have Boston clam chowder versus Manhattan. But all of the chowder chit-chat left me wondering how accurate our descriptions really are and I still wasn’t getting the answers I was looking for.

As I stir my pot of fish chowder, I still wanted to know what was “authentic” and where chowder was born? Was it always fish or clams? Is it the ingredients or the consistency of the concoction that make it chowder? Where did this New England staple come from? French fries aren’t really French, so what if chowder wasn’t really born in New England waters? Oh, the horror!

           The definitive history of chowder seems to have been lost by the wayside. One theory regarding New England style chowder is it was introduced by French, Nova Scotian or British settlers. Others suggest that varieties of soups of this type, thickened with roux, and milk were introduced by Breton fishermen from Newfoundland. But while its origins may be speculative, the ingredients are not, based upon historic documents chowder is mentioned and also because of the thousands of recipes available. It is a style of soup unmistakable regardless of texture, flavor and selected meat added. The sight alone is indication, and makes one’s stomach growl whether a ceramic bowl is presented or my personal favorite, a bread bowl.

           The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines chowder as “a soup or stew of seafood, usually made with milk or tomatoes, salt pork, onions, and other vegetables.” Chowder was a poor man’s food. Typically, the main ingredient was whatever was on hand, be it fish, clam, or mussels, and then vegetables added, usually potatoes, but on occasion a stalk of celery or carrot made its way into the mix. Undoubtedly, clam chowder is the most well-known.

The word chowder has its roots in the Latin word calderia, meaning a place for warming things and later to mean a cooking pot. It also may have been a derivative from the French word chaudri?res (cauldron) or chaudrée. From the 16th century Cornish term for “fishmonger”, we have jowter. This Nordic variation is not recognized by all historians because of the heavy French influence found in Newfoundland. 

The word seems reference to the large pots, vessels, or something resembling a cauldron in which original recipes were cooked. Regardless of whether we reference texts from Native American or European history, chowder, or variations thereof, were either procured from earthen vessels heated with stones and fires or large cast iron pots and Dutch ovens.

Some of the earliest cookware studied in Japan from 15,000 years ago show evidence of cooking fish soup. Luckily for historians and scientists, washing habits of cooking utensils isn’t the same everywhere. Scientists studying shards of clay pottery found most to contain traces of carbon and nitrogen, suggesting fresh or saltwater foods were cooked. Among these residual findings were marine fatty acids. These high nitrogen levels suggest the meats cooked were those of animals that ate other animals, but not mollusks. Pottery from inland had similar characteristics and presumably came from salmon that migrate from marine to freshwater streams.

One of the benefits to cooking in a pot is this technique retains more nutrients in contrast to grilling, where nutrients are lost. By cooking in containers, all the fats and oils are retained, all of which were essential for healthy living in hunter-gatherer societies. By cooking in pottery, coals could be used to allow the food within to simmer while they were busy with other tasks. 

Fish chowders were the predecessors to clam chowder. Many chowders were made on ships or in harbors using whatever the men harvested from the sea. The first fish chowders differed from other fish soups in that salt pork and ship’s biscuits, or hardtack, were used. Today, biscuits are not typically part of the recipe, however oyster crackers or other similar soda cracker is sprinkled on top. But there was a season for clam chowder and certain times when clam chowder was not served, presumably during red tides.

Along these lines, the Oxford English Dictionary traces the word chowder to 16th and 17th Century fishing villages in France, as well as early European references to Cornwall and Southwestern England, and areas having the English Channel in relation to one another. When the ships came into harbors, villages along the coast had large chaudi?re waiting to cook a portion of each man’s allotment and served to the community in celebration.

During these centuries, fish, clams and oysters were consumed in large quantities by American Indians. In some areas, mountains of shells ten feet high could be found on the shoreline. Pilgrims were not as keen on fish, except for eels. It’s been recorded that Pilgrims fed clams to their hogs. The clams in question were most notably quahogs, a name derived from the Narragansett Indian name for “poquauhock”. Its scientific name of mercenaria, meaning “wages”, is fitting since Native Americans strung the shells like beads on string and used them for their currency, or “wampum”.

One of the reasons quahogs were choice was because they are meatier, have more flavor, and less salinity than their smaller counterparts. Quahogs also tend to stay together, whereas steamers fall apart more easily and have a milder flavor.

One of the earliest known printed recipes for fish chowder was in the Boston Evening Post on September 23, 1751. Most of the original chowder recipes called for a layering of ingredients, many times starting at the bottom with a layer of onions to prevent the pork from burning. Copious amounts of herbs and spices were included in the recipes, many of which would turn up many conservative noses today, but in retrospect was typical of English palates wanting more seasonings.

Published in 1796, Amelia Simmons’s American Cookery (the title of which is much lengthier), did not include any fish recipes, however, the second edition published in 1800, became the first American cookbook to include a recipe for chowder. In her recipes she uses bass, raw salt pork, and crackers soaked in water. After frying them, they are served with potatoes, pickles, apple sauce or mangos and garnished with green parsley.

In 1828, Mary Randolph, a cousin of Thomas Jefferson, included in her book, The Virginia Housewife, a recipe for chowder which calls for firm fish, salt pork, and crackers soaked in milk. It is in this recipe we find flour and butter added to the gravy to thicken and pour over the fish.

Lydia Maria in 1832 published her cookbook The American Frugal Housewife, a book which was found on many a shelf of brides in the mid-1800s. An interesting list of ingredients, hers includes the addition of lemons, beer, tomato catsup, and the first written instructions to add clams.

In 1841, Sarah Josepha Hale, writer and editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, was to make history. She had convinced Abraham Lincoln to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday, but also published her book, The Good Housekeeper, which includes a recipe for cod chowder. While keeping with the tradition of layering chowder ingredients, she states, “…let it stand, with fire above as well as below, for four hours…”. It would seem that long before slow-cookers were invented, the knowledge and benefits of slow-cooking were well known, as well as allowing for other tasks to be undertaken.

By the middle of the 1800s, chowder was a pillar of culinary delights in the northeastern states and by 1836 was well-known in Boston, as it was served at Ye Olde Union Oyster House, the nation’s oldest continuously running restaurant operated from a building of more than 250 years old.

Because of their ease in harvesting, clam and shellfish were being used almost exclusively. Expansion to the Midwest and Pacific shores throughout the years took along the traditions of chowder-making and thus more variations. By 1896, Fannie Merritt Farmer’s Boston Cooking School Cookbook, an updated version from its predecessor from 1884, included not one, but three chowder recipes: Clam Chowder, Connecticut Chowder, and Fish Chowder. Newer editions include New England Clam Chowder, Manhattan Chowder, and Rhode Island Clam Chowder.

Decades later, chowder would be the subject of Maine’s Great Clam Chowder War of 1939, sparked by State Representative Cleveland Sleeper from Rockland, Maine. He despised tomatoes so much that he drafted several bills over the years calling for the criminalization of adding tomatoes to clam chowder. In one such bill, he requested that guilty parties be required to dig up a barrel of clams at high tide, an impossible feat at best as well as cruel and unusual punishment by his audiences.

It was the Maine Hotel Association from Portland that stepped in to put the matter to rest once and for all. Calling in such authority figures such as Governor Lewis Barrows and Ruth Wakefield, the inventor of the chocolate-chip cookie, a chowder cook-off was scheduled. Philadelphia restaurateur, Harry Tully, brought his chef and Sleeper brought his. Tully’s chef made tomato-based Manhattan clam chowder and Sleeper’s chef made traditional Maine clam chowder.

A panel of dedicated chowder connoisseurs was on hand for tasting. Supervised by Maine’s Governor Barrows, the chowders were sipped by the rival parties. Sleeper, seemingly repulsed, stated Tully’s chef created vegetable soup, not clam chowder, to which Tully informed him the “tomato lends flavor to the clam”. The panel voted unanimously for the New England version and the morning headlines mirrored the sentiments of the evening, thus ending the feud with Sleeper gloating triumphantly.

I would be remiss if we didn’t give a nod to Manhattan clam chowder. Much like French fries aren’t French, this begs the question: if it didn’t originate in Manhattan, where did it originate?

The first recipe for Manhattan clam chowder to appear in print was in a cookbook called Soups and Sauces by Virginia Elliott and Robert Jones in 1934. But it seems its origins have nothing to do directly with Manhattan. Some believe Rhode Island Portuguese fishing communities traveling back and forth from New York’s Fulton’s Fish Market in the mid-1800s and the Italian communities of New York may have created this version.

During the 1890s, this chowder was known either as Coney Island Clam Chowder or Fulton Market Clam Chowder. By the late 1930s, it became known as Manhattan Clam Chowder. Still others feel this tomato-based version of their beloved soup was simply a form of “sabotage” against the New England tradition.

Further south, New Jersey has their own chowder. It’s described as a cross between a New England traditional clam chowder and Manhattan, closer to the latter, but incorporated creamed asparagus, light cream and bacon. Travel even further south to Florida and St. Augustine is home to Minorcan clam chowder. Another tomato-based mixture similar to Manhattan, the secret ingredient that makes it truly unique is the addition of datil pepper. Varying in color from green to yellow, this pepper is a product of Cuba, lending a sweet, tart and spicy flavor to the dish. The name Minorcan comes from the people of Minorca, Spain, who settled in Florida and brought their Mediterranean-style with them.

In 1961, a young girl named Lynn Jennings wrote a letter to John F. Kennedy asking what his favorite meal was. It was President Kennedy’s secretary who passed on this letter and asked that he please respond, also not to mention the young girl’s handicap. The President did respond, stating his favorite meal was New England fish chowder, the recipe, of which, is available for anyone interested in partaking of a bite of history.

Traditionalists agree potato is the only thickener needed if at all, wherein the starch being the thickening agent, or soft potatoes stirred in, and then several chunks added at the end of cooking to provide the chunky characteristic. Roux, made from flour and butter, is frowned upon by purists, and rightfully so. While it does make a wonderfully thick stew, one in which a spoon can stand on its own and incidentally a measure of perfection, flour can mask the flavor of the meat added.

Admittedly I have a few specific brands that are my favorite, but homemade is still triumphant. I’m no stranger to corn chowder, either, a favorite of my wife. A simple, uncomplicated chowder is all one needs. Life is complicated enough; chowder shouldn’t be. Add a handful of oyster crackers or crumble some Saltines on top and I’m a happy man.

Regardless of your preference, I invite you to take a bite of history. Right or wrong, authentic or modernized, chowder is here to stay and without a doubt a food that binds the masses and unites New England, if not the nation.