Clam Chowder.

 Chowdah, no matter how you say it all comes down to three types in New England; New England, Rhode Island, and… and… do I have to say it? Manhattan. There are also other types of chowder such as oyster chowder, fish chowder, potato chowder, and corn chowder, but in New England it is the three types of clam chowder.

Rhode Island clam chowder is just clam broth, potatoes, and onions but there are a lot of varieties. I have it because it doesn’t have as many carbs as New England, but I find most restaurants put too much salt in it.

Mac’s up in Provincetown puts leeks in theirs New England clam chowder and no thickeners like flour or corn starch. I love New England clam chowder but it doesn’t like me, it sends my blood glucose levels out of sight because of the thickeners. Somewhere along the line New England chowder had to be THICK! If your spoon stands up in it, it’s perfect! That is why I like Mac’s chowder, it just has cream in it with no thickeners.

And now we come to Manhattan chowder, there some who like it but for me it is like having tomato soup with clams and potatoes in it.

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A Brief History of Clam Chowder

Red, white, or clear, the history of chowder is as rich as its flavor.

Eater

By Cynthia Correa

January 31, 2016

From Manhattan to New England, clam chowder is known for its competing varieties as much as for its comforting briny flavor. It seems every state on the East Coast has its own take on the popular soup — and even some of the West Coast states have tweaked the recipe to make it their own. Whether you like a thick creamy base, a bold red broth, or a clear broth of clam juice, there's a chowder for every soup lover. Here's a little history behind the famous soup and it's many iterations.

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When was clam chowder first created?

According to Savoring Gotham: A Food Lovers Companion to New York City, it is believed that the New England style of chowder was introduced to the region by French, Nova Scotian, or British settlers and became a common dish in the area by the 1700s. The soup continued to gain popularity throughout the years and, according to What's Cooking America, was being served in Boston at Ye Olde Union Oyster House (the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the country) by 1836. Clam chowder was so popular that its mollusk-packed flavor is described in Herman Melville's Moby Dick:

However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh, sweet friends! hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut up into little flakes; the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt.

The article goes on to explore the virtues of New England Clam Chowder...

New England clam chowder is defined as "a thick chowder made from clams, potatoes, onions, sometimes salt pork, and milk or cream." The recipe usually calls for heavy cream, light cream, or whole milk as the base for the soup. This addition of milk or cream — producing the soup's unmistakable white color — is the biggest difference between the New England style and all the rest. This version is also often thickened with oyster crackers and doesn't include any vegetables except potatoes. Today, the soup can be found all over the country, but is still most popular in the North East. Maine and Massachusetts may be the two states most associated with the cream-based clam chowder. In fact, it is known as one of Maine's most iconic dishes and is considered a classic in Boston's historic neighborhoods.

And the sins of Manhattan Clam Chowder…

While it had its supporters, not everyone was a fan of the tomato-based twist on the original. In New York Cookbook, Molly O'Neill explains, "Manhattan clam chowder reverberated like an act of sabotage against the New England clam chowder tradition." She went on to detail the outrage associated with the soup's creation:

Manhattan clam chowder remained "a notable heresy." In 1939 a Maine legislator introduced a bill outlawing the use of tomatoes in chowder. In 1940, Eleanor Early, lambasted the "terrible pink mixture" in her book New England Sampler. Manhattan clam chowder, she wrote, "is only a vegetable soup and not to be confused with New England Clam Chowder, nor spoken of in the same breath. Tomatoes and clams," she wrote, "have no more affinity than ice cream and horseradish."

Enjoy your chowder no matter how you like it!

In What’s Cooking America they write about the history of Chowder.

Chowder has its roots in the Latin word calderia, which originally meant a place for warming things, and later came to mean cooking pot.  The word calderia also gave us cauldron, and in French became chaudiere.  It is also thought to come from the old English word jowter (a fish peddler).

A simple dish of chowder, in the past considered to be “poor man’s food,” has a history that is centuries old.  Vegetables or fish stewed in a cauldron thus became known as chowder in English-speaking nations, a corruption of the name of the pot or kettle in which they were cooked.  Different kinds of fish stews exist in almost every sea-bound country in the world.

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Clams and oysters were consumed in such quantities along the Atlantic coast by the American Indians that, in some favorable gathering-places, empty shells were piled into mounds ten feet high.  According to the book Eating in American – A History, by Waverley Root and Richard de Rochemont:

The Northeastern Indians made considerable use of fish, but the Pilgrims were slow to follow their example; they did not care much for fish, except eels . . .  Fish chowder was a popular dish among Northeastern Indians, but as this dish has been created spontaneously, in one form or another, along every coast in the world, we can hardly credit the Indians with having introduced it to Europeans . . . Clams became accepted to them in time, but it is on record that in 1620s the Pilgrims fed clams and mussels to their hogs with the explanation that they were “the meanest of God’s blessings.”

They didn't know a good thing when they saw it. It wasn’t until 1884 that we see recipes for New England Clam Chowder,

1884 – The original Boston Cooking School Cook Book, by Mrs. D.A. Lincoln (Mary Bailey) [You can read the cookbook online with link, all the original recipes. ] had a recipe for Clam Chowder:

In Fannie Merritt Farmer’s 1896 updated version of the Boston Cooking School Cook Book, she has three recipe for clam chowder – Clam Chowder, Connecticut Chowder, and Fish Chowder. Later editions have recipes for New England Clam Chowder, Manhattan Chowder, and Rhode Island Clam Chowder.

So no matter which type of Chowdah you like it is better than not having any clam chowder at all.