Mmm, mmm Good!

     I continue to enjoy the Seafood Chowder that I made on Wednesday.  Each day the flavor seemed to deepen.  Somehow chowder is more satisfying than any soup I could make.  Chowder is soup, but more than soup.  Ironically it was once considered "poor man's food" and not for the well born and the landed gentry.  But what exactly is chowder?  It's really difficult to define because it can be made with a basic stock that can vary from creamy white, to clear and briny to tomato based.  And the ingredients are even more varied.  It usually includes fish or shellfish but is not limited to them alone.  Chowder recipes can also call for conch, alligator, clam, crayfish or crab that can be combined with potato, corn, lentil, tomato, beans, pasta, onion or celery.  All are thrown into a large cooking pot or kettle.  In Latin the word for the pot is calderia and in French it is chauchiere which is probably the origin of the title we now give to this hearty, savory dish.
     Chowder can be traced back to the early fishing villages on the coastline of either side of the English Channel.  When the fishing ships would return from the sea each village had a large kettle waiting in which a portion of each ship's catch would be placed to be cooked and served as a part of the community's welcome celebration.  So the term "chowder" describes both the food as well as the social gathering at which it is prepared and served.
     In America the settlers also enjoyed chowder made from locally caught and grown ingredients and regional variations began to appear.  Hence the rivalry in taste preferences between New England and Manhattan Clam Chowder.  Interestingly enough, the first printed fish chowder recipe in the New World appeared in the Boston Evening Post on September 23, 1751.  There is also a "land locked" southern Illinois Chowder recipe currently in some mid western cookbooks.
     Chowder is truly an international delight.  Some form or variation of fish stew is enjoyed in every nation with a coast.  The Italian Cioppino, French Bouillabaisse and Korean Jeongol are but a few examples.
     But for right now I will continue to savor my Long Island Seafood Chowder as another snowstorm looms on the weather map.