Chowdah!!

     A few weeks ago I came across a really interesting recipe for a Smoked Oyster and Shrimp Chowder.  This weekend I had the opportunity to cook it up after collecting all the variant components which included cod, in addition to the oysters and shrimp and a plethora of healthy veggies like fennel, onion, celery, tomato (I know it's technically a fruit), parsley, garlic and potato.

     But what makes an authentic chowder?  That seems to be a much heated (no pun intended) matter of debate.  There are numerous varieties that range from the creamy white to the clear and briny to the sweet tomato versions.  And everyone seems to have their own favorite recipe.

     Chowder was once considered a poor man's meal where random vegetables and fish were thrown into a giant pot and stewed together.  Early settlers used salt pork to flavor their chowders imitating the recipes of the men of fishing fleets who when at sea would render salt pork then add sliced onions and layers of fish and top it all off with a final layer of hard crackers.  Water would be added in to both soften the biscuits and boil the ingredients.  These early chowders were considered "a man's dish, made at sea by men for men."

     Eventually the chowder recipe came ashore in the neighboring fishing communities that straddled the English channel in France and Britain.  Returning fishermen would offer a portion of their catch and the towns folk would cook it up in a large communal cauldron as a gustatory social event to celebrate the safe return of the fleet.  But it was the woman of the house who refined chowder adding sweet herbs like tarragon and including local ingredients like milk and potatoes.  Italian immigrants were credited for the inclusion of tomatoes to the broth.

     The term  chowder was introduced into our English lexicon from the Latin word "calderia" meaning a place for warming things.  It later was the term for the cooking pot from which we get the word "cauldron,"  the French equivalent being "chaudiere" and similar phonetically to our English word chowder.

     Here is one of the first recipes for chowder printed in the Boston Evening Post in 1751:

          First lay some Onions to keep the Pork from burning
          Because in Chouder there can be not turning;
          Then lay some Pork in slices very thing,
         Thus you in Chouder always must begin.
         Next lay some Fish cut crossways very nice
         Then season well with Pepper, Salt, and Spice;
         Parsley, Sweet-Marjoram, Savory, and Thyme,
         Then Biscuit next which must be soak'd some Time.
          Thus your Foundation laid, you will be able
          To raise a Chouder, high as Tower of Babel;
          For by repeating o'er the Same again,
          You may make a Chouder for a thousand men.
          Last a Bottle of Claret, with Water eno; to smother 'em,
          You'll have a Mess which some call Omnium gather 'em.

If that seems a little too tedious to follow, here's the recipe I used.  Just click on it for a list of ingredients and instructions.  Smoked Oyster and Shrimp Chowder.