According to New England legend, Chicken Chowder was the creation of the female keeper of Atlantic House at Siasconet on the eastern end of Nantucket Island in the early 1840s. A letter in the Boston Daily Times of April 17, 1845 introducing the dish to the editor with a sample of the substance, offered a gloss of the term chowder in its closing lines: “Chowder . . . is a very profound and erudite aboriginal term, signifying a condensation of multiplied and heterogeneous gastronomical delights, similar in meaning to the learned word “Punch.” It embraces in its composition exactly that amount of opposites and contrasts which, throughout all departments of nature, is found to constitute the truly beautiful” (2).
The excellence of the dish was attested by theft. Simri, the steward of the Merchant’s Saloon in Providence, Rhode Island created a sensation in that city with the dish in 1862, claiming to be its inventor. But he was filching a creation of the neighboring commonwealth. Outdoor event cooks such as Tom Hughes of Providence began adding kettles to the traditional clam and fish chowders at civic fetes and clam bakes. A decade later New York men’s club began organizing around the dish. The Tenth Ward Beer Creek Chowder Club had an annual chicken chowder excursion in September to a local grove for kettles of the “magical amalgam.” By the mid-1870s it had become a fixture of outdoor sociability and summer pavilion dining throughout New England. Only in the 1880s did occasional southerners try their hand at chicken chowder. But it may be that it did not have great purchase there because of the region’s own milk-based stew, mull.
Over the decades two schools of chicken chowder preparation emerged. The original Nantucket version hewed closely to the formula for clam chowder, substituting precooked chicken for clam.
The second version was a seasonal, summer version that made use of tomatoes and green or sweet corn, not available in the original Winter and Spring chowder. Here is a description of that version.
In the 21st century, with year round canned corn available at one’s local grocery, the second version of chicken chowder prevails. So much corn is incorporated into recipes that it has come to be called chicken and corn chowder.
ISSUE 60, CHOWDERS, Part 4: Chicken Chowder
ISSUE 60, CHOWDERS, Part 4: Chicken Chowder
ISSUE 60, CHOWDERS, Part 4: Chicken Chowder
Chicken Chowder
According to New England legend, Chicken Chowder was the creation of the female keeper of Atlantic House at Siasconet on the eastern end of Nantucket Island in the early 1840s. A letter in the Boston Daily Times of April 17, 1845 introducing the dish to the editor with a sample of the substance, offered a gloss of the term chowder in its closing lines: “Chowder . . . is a very profound and erudite aboriginal term, signifying a condensation of multiplied and heterogeneous gastronomical delights, similar in meaning to the learned word “Punch.” It embraces in its composition exactly that amount of opposites and contrasts which, throughout all departments of nature, is found to constitute the truly beautiful” (2).
The excellence of the dish was attested by theft. Simri, the steward of the Merchant’s Saloon in Providence, Rhode Island created a sensation in that city with the dish in 1862, claiming to be its inventor. But he was filching a creation of the neighboring commonwealth. Outdoor event cooks such as Tom Hughes of Providence began adding kettles to the traditional clam and fish chowders at civic fetes and clam bakes. A decade later New York men’s club began organizing around the dish. The Tenth Ward Beer Creek Chowder Club had an annual chicken chowder excursion in September to a local grove for kettles of the “magical amalgam.” By the mid-1870s it had become a fixture of outdoor sociability and summer pavilion dining throughout New England. Only in the 1880s did occasional southerners try their hand at chicken chowder. But it may be that it did not have great purchase there because of the region’s own milk-based stew, mull.
Over the decades two schools of chicken chowder preparation emerged. The original Nantucket version hewed closely to the formula for clam chowder, substituting precooked chicken for clam.
The second version was a seasonal, summer version that made use of tomatoes and green or sweet corn, not available in the original Winter and Spring chowder. Here is a description of that version.
In the 21st century, with year round canned corn available at one’s local grocery, the second version of chicken chowder prevails. So much corn is incorporated into recipes that it has come to be called chicken and corn chowder.