THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 7, 1996 TAG: 9601040051
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRIS KIDDER, SPECIAL TO SUNDAY FLAVOR
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
IN AMERICA'S early culinary history, soups were so common, so basic, that cookbooks didn't include the recipes. Everyone knew how to make soup.
Along the Eastern seaboard, the soup everyone made was chowder: a thick, hearty concoction of seafood, onion and salt pork, usually some milk but sometimes only broth.
Chowder is a name derived from the French chaudiere, a large stew pot favored by coastal cooks in Brittany.
The Bretons took to Newfoundland and later Nova Scotia their habit of combining on-hand fish and vegetables and a few stale biscuits. From there, the chowder tradition passed to New Englanders.
Our Yankee forefathers threw in clams, with an occasional white fish. They added milk, a nod to their English heritage, and made the French-Canadian fish soup their own.
The ultra-creamy New England Clam Chowder we know today - full of potatoes rather than biscuits - didn't evolve until the 1800s, according to James Beard's ``American Cookery.''
The first known recipe for a modern clam chowder was published in the 1880s.
New England clam chowder may be the earliest American chowder and the most recognized chowder world-wide, but it is not the only chowder in our lexicon of soups. Chowders made from other fish and seafood, rabbit, venison and even corn have been served at American tables for generations.
While most 20th century sources define chowder as a thick, fish or shellfish soup with a milk or cream base, there are enough deviations to confuse most cooks.
The best known nondairy chowder, for example, is tomato-based Manhattan Clam Chowder, credited to the Italian restaurant community in New York City in the 1930s. Manhattan Clam Chowder is an Americanized fisherman's stew or Italian zuppa de pesce, simpler than a French bouillabaisse, more specific than the eclectic Californian cioppino.
Julia Child and a few other American chefs have railed against the inclusion of this rogue soup in the chowder family, but they have probably lost the war for now. They might also object to the clear-brothed ``Hatteras-style'' clam chowder, although its origins as a hodge-podge fisherman's soup - a survival food that used the ingredients at hand - come closer to traditional chowder.
Contemporary chefs are seldom such purists. Most will admit that when it comes to chowders, almost anything can be thrown. They would argue that the name chowder refers to the ``how'' more than the ``what'' of making the soup.
Typically, chowders don't require long cooking times, Child writes, but they benefit from being made several hours or a day in advance so the flavors have time to meld. Beard's book suggests having all ingredients at the same temperature when blending them.
A stock-based fish chowder might differ from a stew merely in the size of its ingredients: Chowder ingredients are cut or diced into bite-size pieces; stew ingredients are left in larger chunks.
A stew generally has more solids than liquid. The ratio would be reversed for chowder.
A seafood bisque might have the same ingredients as a seafood chowder, but a true bisque would be pureed. A bisque usually has fewer ingredients and often no vegetables except as seasonings.
Many chefs, including Paul Prudhomme, define gumbos, a Creole dish made famous in Louisiana, as a broth-based sub-category of chowders. In Prudhomme's ``Family Cookbook,'' he says there are ``infinite varieties'' of gumbos made with any meat, seafood or poultry.
Prudhomme would not have been surprised, then, by the 37 chowders that made their way into the recent Chowder Cook-Off, sponsored by the Outer Banks Culinary Association.
Chefs from more than two dozen Outer Banks restaurants set up their soup pots in Kitty Hawk and ladled up their best chowders for hundreds of curious soup enthusiasts.
They proved that good chowder can be a light summer broth of fresh corn or a stick-to-your ribs meal of root vegetables and juicy clams. There were crab chowders in tomato bases, creamy chowders filled with oysters and andouille sausage. Rabbit, wild boar, tuna, sweet potatoes, smoked quail, wild mushrooms, pumpkin and chipotle peppers made the menu.
Not all the chowders went beyond the traditional definition, but subtle variations in seasoning, textures and aromas made each distinctive.
Following are the top winners, for your winter-coooking pleasure. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
MOTOYA NAKAMURA/The Virginian-Pilot
While chowder is usually defined as a thick, fish or shellfish soup
with a milk or cream base, the many deviations can confuse home
cooks.
by CNB