ISSUE 60, CHOWDERS, Part 5: The Clam Chowder War
Clam Chowder
At the turn of the 20th century an old New Yorker, a true born Knickerbocker , bemoaned the state of chowder in Manhattan. “hot greasy water with a waterlogged tomato in it”—“vegetable soup containing a few clams.” [“Good Clam Chowder is Hard to Get,” Irish American (August 10, 1901), 3.] He asked himself why sage and thyme should be in a choser. “What better flavor is there than that of the clam.” The presence of celery and carrot he reviled.
The Knickerbocker recalled two versions of clam chowder that deserve respect. The first was what might be called down east clam chowder: the sort of stuff served by seamen for seamen. It lacked bacon & dairy. “It is made of clams, onions, clams, potatoes, clams, hard tack and clams. It is cooked slowly from 6 to 12 hours and is better the second day than the first.: The centrality of hardtack reveals the shipboard character of this old clam chowder. It was from this primitive original that “New England Clam Chowder” evolved, with bavon trying the onions and milk bathing the cooked potatoes and clams, The seasoning was minimal: salt & Pepper. Butter was sometimes introduced toward the end of cooking.
The second of the chowders that the Knickerbocker described is more historically unfamiliar: it is the firsts form of Manhattan Clam Chowder—a variety that developed in the mid-19th century after tomatoes became generally popularized. In New York chowder the clams were chopped fine. “He used potatoes made into dice, salt pork cut up in the same way, onions chopped fine and about a quart of tomatoes to every five gallons of chowder. He also put in a few oysters, a small portion of curry powder and a wee bit of sage.” This was cooked 10 hours. There is no mention of dairy in this clam chowder. Crackers are not used for thickening. Potatoes supply the heft,
Bostonians found the New York chowder nonsensical. “You cannot tell a New York clam chowder by its clams, but you can always identify it by the tomatoes. If you order clam chowder and get somethings that resembles a cross between tomato soup and chicken gumbo, do not say anything that you will later be sorry for” [“How to Eat a New York Clam Chowder,” Boston Journal (July 27m 1909), 6]. The other observation Bostonians made concerned the clams employed. Instead of the littlenecks favored in New England, New Yorkers used old larage quahogs that were hacked into chunks with hand hatchets. They were deemed tough and rubbery. The New England astonishment reached a climax in the 1910s when canned tomatoes and canned green peas were found to be primary constituents of the New York soup.
In the second quarter of the 20th century certain chowder makers were introducing tomatoes into their chowders, leading to charges of culinary heresy. In the late 1930s New England papers began writing editorials on the “tomato question.” In June 11, 1939, George Rector introduced an article in the Springfield Republican with the observation, “If you want to get into a spirited argument with a New Englander all you have to say is: ‘Tomatoes belong in a clam chowder, and not milk.” Rector supplied later in his meditation of the two schools of chowder making a classic recipe for the New England variety that dominated in the 20th century: