STIRRING THE POT

Food columnist Margaret Prouse determines what makes a chowder different from soup

Over a bowl of chowder last week we had a conversation about what constitutes chowder.

Is it a soup made with seafood? Can a soup without seafood be chowder? Is a cream or milk base essential?

The word chowder is derived from the French chaudière, meaning pot or cauldron. Jacques L. Rolland’s “The Cook’s Essential Kitchen Dictionary” (Robert Rose Inc., 2014) includes two possible stories about the history and origins of chowder.

One is that French sailors, marooned on the coast of Maine, made a stew from clams that they dug, combined with pork, onions, potatoes and ship’s crackers salvaged from their stranded vessel. Except for the lack of milk or cream, this ingredient list reflects what I’ve found in traditional chowder recipes.

The second story, which Rolland finds more plausible, is that as the Acadians fled to Florida after the expulsion, they taught people along the way to make seafood stew in a chaudière.

Barron’s “The New Food Lover’s Companion“(2007, Barron’s Educational Series, Inc.) also says the name comes from the word chaudière, described as a cauldron in which fishermen made stews fresh from the sea. The authors go on to say that the word chowder can describe any thick, rich soup containing chunks of food, noting that it can contain any of several varieties of seafood and vegetables.

There is some debate about whether seafood soups made with anything other than a dairy base can be called chowders. The best-known example of these non-dairy alternatives is the tomato-based Manhattan clam chowder.

These discussions interest word nerds and people looking for historical accuracy, but they don’t reflect what people enjoy cooking and eating.

I’ve found common elements in recipes for traditional East Coast chowders: chopped onion cooked in salt pork; cubed potatoes; milk or cream; either clams or cubed cod fillets. If these chowders are thickened at all, it is with crushed saltines.

Here is one version, as found in a reprint of a Women’s Institute cookbook published around 1960.

Clam Chowder

Adapted from “Prince Edward Island Women’s Institute Cook Book of Home Recipes”, C1960.

1 qt clams, canned or fresh ¼ lb salt pork 1 qt diced potatoes 1 onion, diced or chopped 1 qt rich milk, scalded salt and pepper to taste butter, if desired Remove black parts from clams, saving the liquid. Cut pork in small pieces and fry until crisp and golden brown, then remove small pieces of pork from the fat. Add potatoes and onion, with just enough hot water to be seen through the potatoes. Cook over low heat – just simmering – until done. (If cooked over high heat, the chowder is apt to stick and burn).

Finally, add clams and cook 2 minutes after coming to a boil; longer cooking will toughen the clams. Remove chowder from heat and let stand a few minutes, then add hot milk, the clam liquid and seasoning to taste. By adding these last there is less chance of chowder curdling, which often happens if seasonings are added before the hot milk. Add 1 tbsp of butter just before serving or place a bit in each soup bowl.

This quantity yields 6 large servings or 8 small.

Note: Like lobster stew or chowder, clam chowder should set awhile – or “age” a few hours, to be at its best. The flavour is always finer the second day.

Purists would probably view the seafood chowder I make as a travesty, but we like it anyway. I sauté chopped onion and sometimes chopped celery in butter, while simmering peeled potatoes, cut in about 1 cm (½ inch) dice, along with chunks of haddock, cod or hake, a little piece of salmon and sometimes mussels or halved scallops, in reduced-salt chicken broth. When the potatoes and seafood are cooked, I drain and reserve the liquid. If using mussels, I discard the shells.

After the onion is cooked, I stir in flour to make a roux with the butter, and then make a thin sauce from a mixture of the reserved chicken broth and evaporated milk, usually 2%.

Into that goes the potato/ seafood mixture, some black pepper and sometimes a tablespoon or so of chopped fresh tarragon leaves.

It’s good to serve immediately, but as the WI says, the flavour is finer the second day.