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Long ago I spent countless hours in the kitchen trying to perfect the consummate bowl of chowder, laced with tender bits of clam and just the right amount of creaminess. Nothing beats a good bowl of clam chowder on a chilly winter day. And with all the rain we’ve been getting, I sure am glad the annual Santa Cruz Chowder Cook-off is happening this weekend.

It’s been going on for 28 years and I’ve gone to many of them. (In my younger years, I even ran in the Chowder Chase.) However, I haven’t been in a few years so I’m thinking of heading down to sample the latest in ‘chowduh’ head recipes. It’s been raining here for the past 10 days and my bones need warming up.

The history of chowder comes from European roots.  This was originally considered a “Poor Man’s” dish and made its way here on sailing ships heading to the New World.  The sailors used to add any seafood catch to a community pot that was kept simmering on the stove.  The name chowder was derived from a corruption of the word used for the pot it was cooked in. The word’s roots go back to the Latin word ‘caulderia’, which originally meant a place for warming things, and later came to mean ‘cooking pot’. The word caulderia later became cauldron, and in French became chaudiere.

Fish chowder was the forerunner of clam chowder and you will find chowders made from a variety of seafood, poultry and vegetables. It is thought that clams were added to chowder due to their relative ease of collection.

The original chowder’s base was from salt pork and ship’s biscuits. Today’s chowder usually consists of salt pork (or bacon), potatoes, onions, and available vegetables such as parsley, carrots and/or celery. Instead of biscuits, hexagonal oyster crackers are now commonly sprinkled on top.

By the mid-1800’s, chowder spread among the New England states. The New England style chowder adds milk or cream along with a flour roux to the base, which makes for a creamier and thicker soup.

Around 1890, the Portuguese in Rhode Island made a similar soup but used tomatoes instead of cream as they were more readily available. Tomato based stews were already a tradition of Portuguese cuisine. The New Englanders were upset at this change in their recipe and scornfully called it Manhattan Chowder.  In their view, to say anything came from New York was an insult.

A few notable restaurants in New York did capitalize on this label and refined versions of their own further entrenching the Manhattan style. The New Englanders continued to shun the idea of adding tomatoes to this soup, to the point that in 1939 a bill was proposed to the Maine legislature to make it illegal to put tomatoes in clam chowder. However, efforts to rid the world of tomato based chowders were ineffective and subsequent versions of the Boston Cooking School Cookbook were updated to include the Rhode Island Clam Chowder and Manhattan Clam Chowder recipes to go along with the already published New England Clam Chowder version.

Now-a-days, just about everyone has their own killer version of chowder. Clam Chowder cook-offs occur in several places across the country, with the biggest being in Newport, Rhode Island. Personally, I prefer the New England style and it seems to be more popular out west. So I’ll stick with the Santa Cruz cook-off where I’m sure to find many options for the creamy style.

I tend to agree with cookbook writer and chef James Beard (1903-1985) who once described Manhattan Chowder as “…that rather horrendous soup called Manhattan clam chowder. . . resembles a vegetable soup that accidentally had some clams dumped into it.”

There are many recipes for New England Clam Chowder that can be found on-line or in your favorite recipe books. Here is a link to many chowder recipes in a great site at www.ProjectFoodie.com.  This site aggregates recipes from many different magazines, newspapers and cookbooks.  Additionally, here are some of my own helpful tips for the next time you make your own batch.

• I find a mixture of canned and fresh clams works the best. Steam the fresh clams in the liquid from the canned clams. Then add this liquid to your soup base. Just be careful, in that this liquid is very briny. Do not add too much or you will make your soup too salty.
• If the fresh clam feels real heavy, throw it out.  It is probably a “mudder” which is a clam-less shell full of sand and mud and can ruin your chowder.  If after steaming the clam it does not open, also throw it out as that clam was either  dead before cooking and not fresh or a mudder.
• If you use canned clams, don’t add them too soon. They are already cooked and really just need heating up. Spending too much time cooking further will make them tough and rubbery.
• If you can’t find salt pork, bacon will substitute. However, it will taste slightly different and not as authentic as those that use salt pork.
• If you don’t want the added fat of milk or cream but like the thicker texture then use your immersion blender on some of the potatoes to thicken up the soup instead.

If you don’t want to make your own there are plenty of canned versions out there. Some are great and others, not so great. I’ve provided some Smart Buy Ranges for them below (not an endorsement of any kind, just showing prices you can get from www.SmartShopIt.com). But now it’s time for me to ‘clam-up’ and head to the cook-off where I will be “happy as a clam”.

Average Price – $2.97

High Price – $3.50 or higher

SmartShopIt Price Guide – Chicken of the Sea Premium Whole Baby Clams (3.53 oz.)

Smart Buy Price Range – $1.99 – $2.15

Average Price – $2.49

High Price – $3.00 or higher

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Filed under: Interesting & Fun, Recipes, Seafood