Clam Chowder II

So one more bit on clam chowder with a local recipe:

New Englanders use the Native American term quahog. The name quahog derives from the Narragansett Indian name for "poquauhock." The scientific name, mercenaria, of these clams comes from Latin meaning "wages." because Native Americans strung the shells like beads and used them as money or "wampum." Quahogs replace fish in the fish-milk stews of coastal England and France to become New England chowder. Prounounced "chowdah" by people situated north of Connecticut.

In Maine, those living on one side of Penobscot Bay like their clam chowder made with tomatoes, while those living on the other side like it made with milk and no tomatoes. Maine residents often call their region "Down East" and their chowder "Down East Chowder." The definition of of "Down East" is:

When ships sailed from Boston to ports in Maine (which were to the east of Boston), the wind was at their backs, so they were sailing downwind, hence the term “Down East.” And it follows that when they returned to Boston they were sailing upwind; many Mainers still speak of going “up to Boston,” despite the fact that the city lies approximately fifty miles to the south of Maine’s southern border.

By 1836, clam chowder was already well-know in Boston and served at Ye Olde Union Oyster House, the nation's oldest continuously operating restaurant. The building that houses the Union Oyster House is about 250 years old. Daniel Webster, the noted lawyer and orator who served as a Congressman and as Secretary of State, was a regular at the bar, where he was known for downing a tumbler of brandy and water with each half-dozen oysters--and he'd rarely eat less than six plates of the tasty bivalves!

Herman Melville (1819-1891), American novelist, devoted a whole chapter in his famous 1851 book Moby Dick. He writes of the Try Pots, a chowder house in Nantucket, Mass., which served only cod or clam chowder:

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. Our appetites being sharpened by the frosty voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favourite fishing food before him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent, we despatched it with great expedition: when leaning back a moment and bethinking me of Mrs. Hussey's clam and cod announcement, I thought I would try a little experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered the word "cod" with great emphasis, and resumed my seat. In a few moments the savoury steam came forth again, but with a different flavor, and in good time a fine cod-chowder was placed before us . . . Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well deserved its name; for the pots there were always boiling chowders. Chowder for breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you began to look for fish-bones coming through your clothes. The area before the house was paved with clam-shells.


Western Rhode Islanders prefer clear chowder, while others swear by adding just enough tomatoes to tint it a pretty pink color.

Joseph C. Lincoln (1870-1944), author of 47 books and plays about Cape Cod wrote about New England clam chowder:

A New England clam chowder, made as it should be, is a dish to preach about, to chant praises and sing hymns and burn incense before. To fight for. The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought for--or on--clam chowder; part of it at least, I am sure it was. It is as American as the Stars and Stripes, as patriotic as the national Anthem. It is 'Yankee Doodle in a kettle.'

"Nantucket Clam Chowder"

Ingredients

1/4 pound salt pork or slab bacon, finely diced
1 quart fresh quahogs, shucked, packed in 1 cup of their own juice (see note)
2 cups water
1 large yellow onion, finely diced
2 1/2 cups diced new potatoes
4 cups milk or half and half
8 teaspoons unsalted butter
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Note: If you buy your clams in the shell, you will need to shuck them with an oyster knife and reserve 1 cup of the juice; if there is not enough, add commercially bottled clam juice.

In a large saucepan or stockpot over medium heat, saute the pork or bacon until all fat is rendered and all that remains is the cracklings. Remove them and reserve. Remove all but 2 tablespoons of the fat.

Take the clams out of their liquid and reserve it. Rinse the clams in 2 cups water. Strain the water and reserve. Finely mince the clams.

Saute the onions and clams in the pork fat for about 5 minutes. Add the potatoes and cook until tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Add the cracklings.

In a saucepan, heat the milk or half and half; do not boil. Add to the chowder. Serve hot with a teaspoon of unsalted butter on top of each bowl. Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Serve with crackers.

Makes 8 servings.

Sconset Beach & Clam Chowder

Jennifer, Jolene and I set out this morning at 9:30 AM for Siaconset Beach. It is about 6 miles from the Gouin Village and we can take a transit shuttle for $2.00 so we decided to forego the idyllic notion of biking out there and back. In truth, the biking thing is a whole lot of work and in hot, humid sticky weather - it is not idyllic or romantic in any way, unless being sticky, sweaty, hot and dirty are your idea of nirvana.

The formal name is Siasconset, but locals call it 'Sconset for short.

It is at the most eastern point of Nantucket, and you look out into the Atlantic Ocean and all you see beyond that is Portugal. Well, if you could see Portugal anyway...

All the travel and leisure magazine rate Sconset beach the third best in New England.

It was not crowded, and Sconset beach is a wide expanse of sand dotted with occasional sunbathers, book readers and we saw a seal here and there in the water.

The water was cold - even for Jolene - and so we just sat on the beach and just chatted and sunbathed from 10:30 to 12:30 before we headed back to the village of Sconset to have lunch at the Sconset cafe.

There was a Sconset Cafe Clam Chowder on the menu and it stated that it is said to be the "best" on Nantucket - so I had to try it.

Jennifer and I have pretty much tried every chowder at every place we have been and the Sconset chowder is not the typical thick, creamy Quahog chowder that we have had all over the island. The Sconset chowder was a "true" Cape Cod milk chowder. It was a thin, unthickened milk-based chowder with chunks of red potatoes and chopped Quahogs. There was also a golden slick of butter floating on the top.

It was a good chowder, but not great by any means and certainly not "the best" I ever had by a long shot.

It is said that native New Englanders will say that the thin milk chowder is the most authentic one as opposed to the thick, wallpaper paste consistency chowder that predominates the country as "New England Clam Chowder". Supposedly, New Englanders believe that chowders should be thickened with crackers - nothing else.

It is unclear if chowder was an invention of the French, British, or Native Americans, but its development clearly has links to the growth of the fishing trade off the coast of the Canadian Maritime Provinces and New England. Fish chowder received its first bit of publicity in 1751 in Boston, while there was no written reference to clams in chowder until 1833, when Lydia Maria Child mentioned that “a few clams are a pleasant addition” to her fish chowder recipe. (While it makes many New Englanders squirm, Ms. Child also used the same recipe to introduce the concept of adding tomato (in the form of ketchup) to her chowder — instantly igniting the issue that has forever sundered sensible New Englanders and their milk-based New England Clam Chowder from their big-city neighbors to the south with their tomato-mish-mash Manhattan Clam Chowder. Will these senseless feuds never end!?)

Anyway, in 1837, another cookbook writer, Eliza Leslie, took the courageous stand that “chowder may be made of clams,” and further secured the world’s gratitude by advocating the use of potatoes in chowder. In decades to follow, thousands of varieties of clam chowder evolved, often according to ingredient availability (soft-shell clams, or steamers, being the staple in Maine because of their abundance; quahogs being chosen on Cape Cod because of their profusion).

Among thousands of clam chowders, no more than three or four broad categories have taken on names that chefs or food snobs would agree on. There are two recognized types of New England clam chowder (the assertive chowder made with quahogs and seasoned with herbs and often garlic, and the sweeter, more subtle steamer, or soft-shell, clam chowder, which is less heavily seasoned). According to Jasper White, both include a creamy broth with clams, potatoes, onions, celery, and salt pork or bacon, but neither of these two varieties has an official name other than New England Clam Chowder.

Yes, there is Manhattan Clam Chowder, which some have characterized as vegetable soup with clams. It, too, has many, many varieties. In between — geographically and culinarily — there is is Rhode Island Clam Chowder, which has neither tomatoes nor milk, but a clear broth (although pitchers of hot milk are often served alongside for those who realize that Rhode Island is actually a part of New England).

In your zeal to understand chowder, you have fallen into the trap of believing that — like most things in our commercial society — everything in the food world is branded. There is no official Boston Clam Chowder, nor can we find any agreement about what particular variation of New England Clam Chowder it would refer to. That doesn’t mean, of course, that dishes by that name don’t appear on hundreds of restaurant menus inside and outside of Boston. Authentic Clam Chowder is either an oxymoron or it applies equally to any and all clam chowders ever made.

I actually like any variety of clam chowder as long as it has milk and potatoes - and I despise Manhattan Clam Chowder as much as I love the creamy versions.