October 27, 2023 • 42 mins
This thick, comforting soup comes in red, white, and clear varieties with countless adaptations. Anney and Lauren dip into the history and culture of chowders, clam and beyond.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Saber Prediction of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Anniries and I'm Lauren vogel Baum, and today we
have an episode for you about chowder.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, and a couple of rabbit holes about separate types
of chowder. Yeah, but probably could return to too many
of those.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I mean yeah, we could probably go really in depth
into specific ones, maybe especially in like a like a shorter, shorter,
offshoot SIPs episode or something like that side dish. Yeah,
but right, you know, like I guess, I guess it
was kind of starting to look into chowder and I
was thinking about it because it is as we have talked.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
About soup season.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yes, I mean, soup season lives in your heart forever,
but it does. But like the weather, it's been changing
and getting a little bit cooler. And so yeah, chowder,
so good.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Here we are. Oh, I love chowder. I go through
phases when I was a kid. I definitely would like
certain movies I associated with chowder for no real reason.
There's no rhyme or reason to why. But I would
be like, this is a movie. I need to have chowder, okay,
And I have a can of chowder. I've had it
(01:23):
for a while. I think since our Old Bay episode,
because it's an Old Bay clam chowder and I'm just waiting.
I'm just waiting for the right moment to eat it.
I'm very excited about it. I almost did it today,
but I have a lot of other stuff that's about
(01:43):
to go bad, so I have to eat that first. Sure. Yeah,
but I'm very excited about this prospect. Oh, I'm happy
for you. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I don't have any immediate chowder plans, but as soon
as I get my kid and kind of more settled
here at my new place, one of my favorite things
to make is a corn chowder, like like really simmering
the corn cobs and some broth and yeah, just cooking
everything down and making it so tasty.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah. Oh, it sounds outrageously good. Yeah I'm mad. Yeah,
I'm mad about it. Mad, but also invite me. Yeah, yeah,
there you go. That's a spirit. Yes, well, I guess
that brings us to our question, and I guess it
does chowder. Yea, what is it?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Well, chowder is a category of soups that can actually
go in a few different ways and incorporate like any
number of ingredients, depending and people enjoy arguing about which
is correct or correct like in scare quotes. I guess,
but I am going to say right here that all
chowder is good chowder and everything else is semantics.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, yeah, that's a pillow. There you go. That's a
pillow if I've ever heard one. All right.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Showders do tend to be like like hardy, a little
thickened with roo and or potatoes, more like a chunky
stew than a soup. Sometimes it really depends on your preferences,
but you've got three basic categories, white, red, and clear.
White chowders are creamy thanks to milk and or cream a.
(03:33):
Red showders incorporate tomatoes, and clear chowders use neither. Seafood
bases like clam or some kind of whitefish like cod
are pretty traditional. Many chowders incorporate preserved pork like bacon
as a flavoring, along with a few vegetables, but there
are lots of variations other fish or shellfish, chicken corn.
(03:54):
They're usually fairly mildly seasoned with some warm herbs like
thyme and bay leaf.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Chowders are like adaptable thickened soups, like a like a
soup that's thinking about getting up and stretching its legs
a bit, you know, thinking about it, thinking about it,
maybe not gonna maybe it don't.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Maybe not going to do it, but thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, they're they're like the they're like the cable net
sweaters of soups.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, oh so hungry, so hungry. Okay, with any chowder,
as with I guess pretty much any soup in general,
you're probably going to start by building flavor by sauteing
some aromatic vegetables in this case, definitely onion and celery,
And you're going to do that in the fat of
your choice in this case, like butter, bacon, grease, some
(04:47):
kind of vegetable oil, I don't know. You then add
whatever kind of broth you're using, and some seasonings, you know,
salt and pepper, herbs, maybe some white wine, maybe some spices.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Chowders usually do have chopped potato cooking down in them
for a while, and once those are basically done, you
mash them a tiny bit for body into the broth
and then add your born delicate ingredients you're cooked protein
or you're quick cooking seafood, any dairy, any veg or
herb that you want to keep fresher and then you're done,
you know, season to taste, maybe serve with crackers or
(05:20):
crusty bread. But all right, that's a very general overview.
As I said, there's a bunch of different ways to
do it. People do like arguing about it. I'm going
to pose it, however, that when most people think about showder,
they're thinking about the white kind, sometimes called New England style.
(05:43):
These take this kind of mild base that we just
went over and add richness with milk and or cream,
maybe a light roue, which is flour and butter cooked together,
or even maybe cheese. The broth based might be clam
or fish or chicken. The sort of starring green might
be any of those things, or sweet corn preferably sliced
(06:04):
fresh off the cob, and preferably some of the cobs
in your broth to get that extra flavor out. Or yeah,
maybe no protein, maybe just potato. Maybe add bacon to
the potato if you want to.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
If you put in vegetable broth, you can make it vegetarian. Meanwhile,
the red kind, sometimes called Manhattan style, is a little
sweeter like in a vegetable way, and usually spicier with
the addition of ingredients like carrots, bell peppers, garlic, red
pepper flakes, and tomato in paste or sauce or crushed form.
Your broth may still be clam or fish, or chicken
(06:39):
or vegetable, maybe even beef. You can incorporate those proteins
or not and focus on the vege. Some recipes do
start with a red base and then add a bit
of dairy at some point in the process to make
a creamy tomato situation. Best of both worlds, total abomination.
(07:00):
I can't tell you decide.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
People have opinions too. They certainly too.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
This is one of those I feel like every dish
we talk about like, I wind up saying something very controversial,
just in describing what it is.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yes, yes, oh gosh, don't come at me. Don't come
at me. Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Speaking of the third kind, the clear kind, sometimes called
Rhode Island style, this is almost always a clam chowder. Specifically,
it's a little bit lighter and a more directly clammy
than other chowders.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Might be finished with a little bit of lemon juice
and parsley.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
But yeah, this is just scratching the surface. The chowdery surface,
because like, there are all kinds of specific regional varieties
and preferences, like do you want your shellfish to be
fresh or canned? If they're fresh, do you add them
a whole in their ells and all? Or do you
(08:01):
shell them first? Do you chop them? What specific clams
do you use? What kind of fish is the fish smoked?
Do you use cream or milk and rub some of both?
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Do you use bacon or salt pork? Do you add
beans or squirrel or sausage or hot peppers? You want
to finish it with sherry or some brum you want
to serve hot sauce alongside it? How important are.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
The oyster crackers to the chowder experience? You have to
tell us. You have to write in. You have to
I need to know. Laura needs to know. I need
to know. I do love a good oyster cracker. Yeah,
not all the time, but sometimes you're just feeling it
and I have it. See, I kind of like oyster
(08:46):
crackers all on their own. I'm sort of like, oh, yeah,
this dry, flavorless thing is great. I want to eat
more of that. But it's got that like crunch. Yeah,
that's salt. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
In general, I don't like crunchy in my soup.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
But yeah, I dear sometimes I got a mix. I
like all kinds of things. You know, I prefer a
bread for dipping personally. But you know, okay, okay, well
what about the nutrition? Oh that really depends. I can't
tell you move not even going to try. Nope. Well,
(09:26):
we do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yes, okay, if you think I'm overstating the number of
variations we're working with. Here, a chef by the name
of Jasper White published a cookbook of fifty chowders back
in the year two thousand.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Fifty chowders.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, yeah, uh huh yeah. Also science fact of the episode,
the cohog clams sometimes used in like locally made New
England clam chowder can live half a century or more.
Weren't I mean, you know, like if you don't eat them.
In the early two thousands, researchers found this one clam
(10:07):
that was five hundred and seven years old, accidentally among
a catch of like a couple hundred that they took
off the coast of Iceland and immediately froze for study. Yeah,
there were headlines that were all like, scientists accidentally kill
world's oldest animal at age five hundred and seven.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Oh, man, imagine this clam. It's like, Wow, I'm living
it out, long life.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Just doing McLam best, really just experiencing it all. And
then science, science, science happens to us. All yeah, oh dear,
oh dear. M h yeah, it's it's debateable. It was
(11:02):
debatably the world's oldest oldest animal. That it depends on
how you define like corals anyway. Okay, but so, uh
another number for you. I don't think that we've talked
about this book series. Correct me if I'm wrong, But okay. So,
an author by the name of Maya Corrigan writes these
cozy mysteries under the series name Five Ingredient Mysteries, and
(11:24):
in twenty fifteen she published one called Scam Chowder.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yes, Yes, I'm in. I'm in one thousand percent.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Apparently the plot is all like this detective goes and
visits her grandpa and he's trying to like uncover this
scam artist who's been like working over this group of retirees.
And then the guy who he was trying to call
out winds up dead. At this dinner party where he
serves as clam chowder, and and he's and he's you know,
(11:59):
under suspicion of murdering the guy, and so mysteries. Yeah,
but in a cozy way, I'm sure. And there's there's
a recipe in the book. I'm sure it turns out
very well. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Okay, so I'm sure it does. Sure it does. Yes.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Also, y'all, there are a lot of chowder festivals around
the United States. Okay, a sampling for you. There's one
in New Bedford, Massachusetts that's been running for eighteen years
as of twenty twenty three end of September every year.
One in Saratoga Springs, New York that's been going for
twenty four years every February. For their twenty fifth anniversary
(12:39):
next year in twenty twenty four, they'll have some eighty
chowders available for tasting and four ounce servings for.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Two dollars apiece. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
One on Long Beach Island has been running for thirty
four years. That happens the first week in October. I
witnessed photos of people wearing clam hat. There's a chowderfest
in Santa Barbara benefiting the local Legal Aid Foundation. Apparently,
apparently there's one that's been running for over a hundred
(13:14):
years in Illinois, the Bone Gap Chowder, and they get
like they get like twenty kettles a cook in and
apparently this, this South Illinois type of chowder is very distinct.
And I'm not and I'm not sure. I'm not sure
(13:34):
about the rest of it. But the photos, the photos
of like the lines of chowder cauldrons and like the
giant stirrers and like the the fires being stoked are
really spectacular. So if this is something that you're familiar with,
oh my goodness, right, and let us know.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Oh yeah, if you been to any of these things
also curious, like the around the world, Yeah, what is it?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I understand that chowders are are also a thing in
New Zealand having come over from America.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Well, listeners, we're counting on you once again. But that
being said, we do have some history for you, Oh.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
We do, and we are going to get into that
as soon as we get back from a quick break.
For a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsors, Yes, thank you, so yes.
Chowder's history is a very mysterious one and there are
a lot of variations to take into account. We're going
to kind of do an overview for this episode. Sure,
there are a lot of variations. Essentially, soups with seafood
and vegetables have been around, especially in areas near water,
(15:00):
for a long long time, particularly in this case, perhaps
off the coast of England and France, where folks would
make these soups in large cauldrons. Some hints about chowder
specifically come from theories about etymology. You know, we love
that here. Some think it might come from the French
word for boiler.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, like a like a cauldron, like a type of
pot in which you boil stuff. The French word is
a scholtier. Sure, I don't speak French.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Let's go with that.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, And the English word cauldron does stem off of
the same late Latin root, right.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
And so some people think that this is also related
to a Latin word for heating, the name chowder, or
from a dialect local to Cornwall in the word jowder
meaning fishmonger. So all of those kind of fit who
knows mystery history. Yes, some speculate that chowder originated from
(16:07):
fishures on the Canadian coast who were trying to use
up they remaining catch, and that essentially, though the particulars
may vary, that's what most historians think happened. It's basically
like seafares had this surplus fish, or maybe they were
just making long journeys over water and they wanted to
(16:29):
do something so as not to waste that fish, and
or that's what they had on hand, which for most
ships would include things not only the fish, but things
like wine, hard tack, and salt pork.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
So chowder, Yeah, yeah, put it in a pot, boil
it together. You get a soup.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
You get a chowder. Yeah. Yes. But if you're like, wait,
that doesn't seem like the chowder, I know. Well. The
earliest known recipe for chowder dates back to a seventeen
fifty one poem that was published to the Boston Evening Post.
And please indulge me. We don't get to do a
(17:12):
lot of recipe poems.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah, on this podcast, food pems, sometimes recipes, sometimes very infrequently.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Recipe poem. Okay, yes, I'm ready. Okay, I don't know
if you are. I don't know if I am. But
here you go. First, lay some onions to keep the
pork from burning. Because in chowder, there can be no turning.
Then lay some pork and slices very thin. Thus you
and chowder always must begin. Next, lay some fish cut crossways,
(17:48):
very nice. Then season one with pepper, salt and spice, parsley,
sweet marjoram, savory and thyme. Then biscuit next, which must
be soaked some time. Thus your foundation laid, you will
be able to raise a chowder high as tower of Babel. Babel,
(18:08):
I always said, Babbel, but able whatever. For by repeating
over the same again, you may make chowder for a
thousand men the last bottle of claret, with water enough
to smother them. You'll have a mess, which some call omnium. Gatherum.
(18:32):
I feel like I just like did a spell and
I'm going to be cursed later cursed with chowder. Oh well,
then that's great. I'm happy about that. But yes, okay,
so from this poem you can tell it's still not
quite what a lot of us. But think of when
you hear chowder, So like biscuits instead of potatoes, preserved
(18:55):
pork instead of clams, red wine, no stirring, what's of herb,
layers of raw fish. But also apparently, and this was
the rabbit hole I had to cut myself off from.
It was somewhat of a fat at the time for
men to write sort of like parody poetry or like
(19:17):
tongue in cheek, serious poetry about something not really traditionally poetic.
So writing a poem about chowder.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yeah, yeah, okay, So there's two things going on here. First,
a kind of played out trend at the time was
waxing poetic very publicly in newspapers or salons about every
trifling little thing it had gotten by this time, to
(19:46):
the point where people were making fun of that trend
with this new trend of spoof poems.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Oh wow, yeah, oh well, okay, but poem, this first recipe,
as many like to call it, it might have been
a joke, but it does indicate that people in the
area were familiar with chowder at the time enough so
that it would be a joke, right sure, And most
(20:12):
sources I read believe that it was a staple in
certain parts of US and the US Eastern Coast by
the eighteen hundreds, although I also read like it might
have been more of a castrole situation than a soup
situation at the time.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, that's what it sounds like from this recipe anyway,
but hard to say, hard to say, hard to say.
I guess along similar lines with familiarity the old like
centuries old insult a jolt head morphed into chowderhead in
some English, like American English dialects. Right around the eighteen teens.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Okay, okay, and this is around the time that we
get recipes for chowder that were popping up in cookbooks
in the US. One of the first was in Lydia
Marie Childs eighteen twenty nine work The Frugal Housewife, which
still called for fish like in that poem we just read,
but the wine was absent. The herbs were also cut
(21:13):
down and replaced with ketchup beer and maybe even some clams. Yeah.
Some credit Amelia Simmons seventeen ninety six, Work American Cookery,
or more accurately, her second edition published in eighteen hundred,
which included a recipe for chowder. And here's a quote.
(21:33):
Take a bass weighing four pounds, boil half an hour,
Take six slices raw salt pork, fry them till the
lard is nearly extracted. One dozen crackers soaked in cold water.
Five minutes. Put the bass into the lard. Also the
pieces of pork and crackers, cover close and fry for
twenty minutes. Serve with potatoes, pickles, apple sauce, or mangoes,
(21:56):
garnish with green parsley. Oh okay, Yeah, that is a
fascinating recipe to me, because I like the soaking of
the crackers, and then we'd get pickles and apple sauce
or mangoes. That's a side dish.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
I add a little bit of a little bit of
tart to it. Sure, a tart a pop. Yeah. Mary
Randolph's eighteen twenty eight book The Virginia Housewife also had
a recipee for chowder, and in eighteen forty one, Sarah
Josifa Hale, often credited with convincing President Lincoln that Thanksgiving
(22:32):
should be a federal holiday, had a recipe for cod
chowder in her book The Good Housekeeper. And from this
point on, ish fish and clams became the protein choice
of chowders in this region. And one of the places
we have record of that is Herman Melville's eighteen fifty
(22:53):
one book Moby Dick. Okay, who comes up kind of
surprisingly often?
Speaker 2 (22:59):
He wrote about show he wrote about a lot in
that book, so sure, yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yes, Well, in this book, an entire chapter follows a
character's choice between clam or cod chowder. Choice Ishmael, the protagonist,
goes for clam, and here's the description. It was made
of small, juicy clams scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed
(23:25):
with pounded ship biscuits and salted pork cut up into
little flakes, the whole enriched with butter and plentifully seasoned
with pepper and salt. Sounds good. Yeah, he also likes
the cod chowder, but doesn't seem as enthused about it. Okay,
the clam one was the one, Okay. Yeah. The eighteen
(23:49):
hundreds was when chowders started appearing on New England menus
as well.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yeah, and by the eighteen fifties it was certainly popular
in New England. In John Russell Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms
from eighteen fifty nine, we get this definition chowder a
favorite dish in New England, made of fish, pork, onions,
and biscuits stewed together. Cider and champagne are sometimes added.
Picnic parties to the seashore generally have a dish of
(24:16):
chowder prepared by themselves in some grove near the beach
from fish caught at the same time.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yeah. Well, the milk didn't really come into the mix
until later. Most early recipes left it out, using potatoes
or crackers in water to achieve a level of creaminess.
An eighteen eighty recipe out of Miss Parloa's New Cookbook
claimed milk was optional, but did call for boiling, suggesting
(24:46):
that it had moved away from castrole and more towards soup.
And it also suggests that it had really solidified itself
as a part of New England cuisine in a time
when there was sort of a colonial revival happening in
the region. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yeah, it was the one hundredth anniversary ish of the
Declaration of Independence and people were feeling very nostalgic, right.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
And this also seems to be the time that other
chowders started popping up in places that didn't have access
to clams, like corn chowders, smoke salmon chowders, squirrel meat
chowders again future episodes.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah yeah, maybe maybe yeah, Because the dish's popularity was
moving Inland where, especially in this time before refrigeration or
canning had really taken off, Like right around the turn
of the century here you just couldn't get seafood Inland,
(25:49):
and as always, people substitute what's plentiful and popular. The
Boston Cooking School cookbook published a recipe for corn chowder
in eighteen eighty four, and by the end of the
century there were more recipes for corn chowder around the
US than any other type.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Wow, it reminds me a lot of like episodes we've
done on oysters and lobster, where when they moved inland,
all of these things, now these substitutes happened. Yeah, which
speaking of not necessarily the same, but tomato based Manhattan
clam chowder, which you talked about at the top orient
(26:29):
The first known recipe of that was published in nineteen
thirty four, and that particular chowder has historically drawn a
lot of iron up to the point that a legislator
in Maine tried to outlaw it in nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Or just like specifically to outlaw putting tomatoes in a chowder.
And apparently under had this law been passed, guilty offenders
would have been sentenced to digging up a barrel of
clams at high tide, which is apparently in popossible. I
don't know how clams work.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Oh my gosh. Yeah, listeners, please write in Yeah, here's
a quote from this whole thing. No person of taste
and culture actually is going to put tomatoes in their
clam chowder. Wow. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
And the legislator who put forth that bill one representative
Cleveland Sleeper, which is a great name. He never got
the bill to go anywhere, but he did not let
his cause go. Later, in nineteen thirty nine, he set
up a sort of like stunt cookoff where he pitted
chefs of the white and Red style against each other,
(27:43):
and a panel of judges declared the White style the winner,
though notably all of those judges were from New England.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
So hmm uh, I see, I've never had this Manhattan style.
I need to get it that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Yeah, it's a it's a different it's a it's a
different experience.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
It's a different thing. Yeah. Okay, Well, clearly people are
fiercely opinionated about it. Ye eleanor early author of the
book New England Sampler, wrote of this Manhattan style clam chowder,
it is only a vegetable soup and not to be
(28:25):
confused with New England clam chowder, nor spoken of in
the same breath. Tomatoes and clams have no more affinity
than ice cream and horseradish. Dang oh yep, all right,
but there are a lot of different styles. New Jersey
(28:49):
apparently created their own version around this time, with tomatoes, cream, disparagus, bacon,
and light cream seasoned with old bay, among other things.
Florida has their own version two men or Can minor
Can clam chowder. I'm not sure, Please correct, Please correct
(29:10):
me if I'm wrong. It's similar to Manhattan clam chowder,
but it has the key addition of daddle daytil pepper,
a pepper indigenous to Cuba that was introduced to Florida
centuries ago. People are very passionate about that one as well.
So also there's Rhode Island style, There's North Carolina style,
(29:31):
there's San Francisco style, there's Cabo style. Probably all emerged
around this time too, And I mean soups do leave
themselves to adaptation and experimentation, so it makes sense. The
dairy versus non dairy versions were also largely based on resources,
(29:52):
so it was sort of like, can we get this?
Can we not and that's a soup. That's the soup story.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, oh yeah, And you know flavor profiles that you
grew up with and whether or not you want something
to be creamy or vegetable, or it would be some
combination of the two.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Right, And I will say, like throughout this research, clam
chowder was is a dish that really seemed to straddle
being a poor man's food, especially in some regions, and
then something nicer, like a really nice dish. And if yeah,
if you go back to like our oyster episode, clams
(30:32):
used to be really plentiful in that area. It was
something indigenous people of the region have been enjoying responsibly
for many years. So it was sort of like available,
but it could be made very fancy. It was. It
was a really interesting example of something that was both.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah yeah, or that like had been for a long
time just you know, like what you ate because that
was what you had versus right when that kind of
nostalgia started kicking in and you started going like, oh
and like now I can afford to finish it with
cherry or whatever it is that it.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Is and doing that kind of thing to it. Yeah, yeah,
and I really would love to hear from listeners about
this because for me, like it's I got it from
a can and I liked it. It was nice even
like getting it from a can, it felt like a
nice occasion for me. Yeah, but I would love to
hear from people in the region who you can get
(31:32):
it fresh, and you can get it in a can,
and you, I don't know, fancy it up in all
these different ways.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, I feel like when when I was a kid anyway,
like it was sort of if there was one on
like a restaurant menu, I felt very fancy indeed ordering it.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, it does feel fancy, which is so fascinating. Yeah,
but I think I will I got my can. I
think I'm going to watch a Halloween movie eat my
my chowder. Yeah, I'm so excited for you. Heck yah, Yes,
(32:12):
I'm excited to thank you. But yes, listeners please write in,
but this is what we have to say about chowder
for now.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
We do already have some listener mail for you, and
we are going to get into that as soon as
we get back from another quick break forward from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with listener man like leaves. Oh yeah, I
feel like when I want a good a good cup
of chowder, the leaves are falling. Yeah. Cool night and
(33:01):
I'm wrapped in my blanket.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Oh my gosh, something bloody is happening on television.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
It's fantastic what I want? Which we do have to
kind of Halloween adjacent, so follows Halloween to Me, Halloween
Messages from listeners. Okay, okay. Starting with Eric Arc wrote,
does Halloween season ever have to end? Not reals? Twizzlers
(33:35):
is one of those candies that I think you get
a craving for. Occasionally you forget about them and then suddenly, hmmm,
I could go for some Twizzlers. That is what happened
to me before listening to the episode. I was at
the store, saw them and said, it's been a while,
grab a pack, and then the episode pops up into
my feed later. Great time. I agree with Lauren on
(33:58):
the mini's they taste this same, but something does feel
different about the texture. A big thank you to you
and Melanie on that soup recipe. Made it for dinner
today and wow, so simple and yet so complex. This
is definitely going into my Fall slash Winter soup list.
Love to the Caustic Worcestershire episode, another versatile sauce. I
(34:24):
like to throw a dash or two into eggs when
whisking them up for scrambled eggs, as just a little
bit of extra flavor. As you noted, there is a
difference between the US and the UK version. Several places
do import the UK version. Look for an orange label.
There is a taste difference, but it is not wildly
(34:44):
different to my memory. Definitely worth a try if you can,
to see if you would prefer one to the other.
Hmm hmm, okay, okay, okay, just to shear taste test.
Oh my gosh, I'm really into that. I feel like
I've neglected this idea that you can't do taste tests
(35:06):
with like literally everything, Like I've always kind of pigeonholed
it and that it's like a wine taste test or
but you Yeah, somebody was telling me the other day
about some taste tests they did and I was like, oh, yeah, absolutely,
so yes into that. I love that you tried the soup.
(35:30):
We have more soup recipes than this was the sentence
that we've read will read, and that's very fun and exciting.
I love soup so I'm so excited by it, just
sharing sharing this soup love Yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah
the Twizzlers I love that. Uh you agree with Lauren
(35:52):
on these minis, I love a lot of people had
thoughts about Twizzlers. Yeah, They're definitely a if they come
my way maybe type of candy. Okay, all right, Yeah
twizzlers are sometimes food. Sure, yes, but that makes the
next thing all the more fun.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yes, okay, all right, So Hannah wrote, I just listened
to your Twizzlers episode and I realized it was time
to tell you about something we have done at my work.
I make handmade wigs for a living, which means that
I'm My coworkers spend a lot of time sitting around
doing fiddlely handwork and chatting. We also, like any workplace,
have a fondness for snacks. One day, we were talking
(36:35):
about candies and one of my coworkers was trying to
figure out which candy would be best to bring in
in order to make the most people happy. At the time,
there were probably about six or seven people regularly coming
in and out of the studio, and even with only
seven people we couldn't do it. We spent the afternoon
suggesting candies that we were sure must be universally liked kitcats.
(36:55):
Someone said, who doesn't like KitKat? I raised my hand.
I mean they're fine, I guess, but they don't have
much going for them. What about reces? I've never met
someone who didn't like a rece's cup. Another coworker made
a face. I like peanut butter and I like chocolate,
but I just don't like them together. We threw up
our hands. It was too much. At this point, we
couldn't even keep track of what we had already discussed. Finally,
(37:17):
my most organized coworker wrote down a list of all
the candies that we could think of. We sorted them
on a binary system, one for like, zero four do
not like. No consensus, not a single universally liked candy.
But then we began to question the system. How much
does one have to like a candy to give it
(37:37):
a one? Would they happily eat the candies that weren't
their favorites if they were free? Or were there things
they would truly refuse? Over the years, our system has
developed into a spreadsheet with four numbered categories. Zero being
will not eat under any circumstances, One being will eat
(37:58):
if provided, but would never spend money on two being,
will absolutely spend money on three being an absolute favorite. Now,
our staff has changed over the years, and not everyone
who was there for the original binary list was still
there by the birth of the four step system. We
have kept the binary data because I mean, I'm not
(38:18):
going to lose data, but it is kept separately from
the complete data. Once everyone currently working had responded, we
were able to add up the numbers and sort out data,
and the winner. The only candy with only ratings of
twos and threes was drum Roll Please Twizzlers pull and peel.
(38:43):
I had to laugh when it sounded like the two
of you are not big fans. Clearly, our small sample
size here at work does not provide universal answers. This,
of course also led to an argument between people who
peel saying humans and people who bite the whole thing psychopath.
The second most highly rated candy with two fewer overall
(39:05):
points is the original Twizzlers. Interestingly, the people at our
company who prefer red vines all also like Twizzlers, while
the people who prefer Twizzlers all despise red vines. In
case you need to know, the top ten candies according
to the custom Wig Company official candy rating system are Twizzlers,
(39:27):
Pull and Peel, Twizzlers, Reese's Cups, Peanut Butter, m and
MS Fast Break. Clearly it's just our one peanut butter
chocolate hater keeping the peebee down, toblerone, Hershey's Kisses, Chewy Spree, Rollos, Butterfinger.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
The lowest rated five are black Licorice, Razzles, Neco Wafers, Jawbreakers,
and bit of Honey. And I bet you can guess
the only candy was straight ones, making it the only
candy with absolute consensus. Dumb dumbsuckers. Now, I could analyze
the candy data all day, and we sometimes do, but
(40:10):
I will let you go happy spooky slash candy seasoneh.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Wow, amazing. I mean, I appreciate the work, the dedication,
the research. That's second delightful.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
That's great, so good, that's really terrific.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
It's excellent. And I also I'm I'm like, legitimately, I
am so fascinated by these results. Yeah, there are some
candies I've never heard on there. What's a razzle? I'm
(40:53):
I love this, this is great. I love how people
have opinion on candy. They're like, even if you don't
eat candy that much like me? Yeah no.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Also, Also, how did Chewy Spreese get on the top
list and Necho Wafers on the bottom list when it's
the same flavor profile.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Just one is Chewy. We have follow up questions for
your research, please.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
I'm sorry sprees are more tart. That's I was, but
they saw the same like powdery aftertaste that I anyway,
huh huh.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
I love this. I love this so much.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
I do self associate with the whole like, like, because
I'm a fan of Twizzlers and I do not appreciate
a red vine.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
I'm like, what is that?
Speaker 2 (41:44):
No?
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Thank you? Yeah, I feel like you've really uncovered some
yeah important data here. And I love also how you
didn't throw away your previous data. You got to keep
all the data.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, yeah, you know, we just need a larger sample
size too.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
T Whizzler's cool and Peel. I can't wait to tell
my friend. She's gonna be outraged. It's gonna be great, wow, beautiful. Yes,
thank you so much for sharing that, And thank you
to both of these listeners for writing in. If you
would like to write to as you can. Our email
is hello at saborpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
We're also hypothetically on social media.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
You can find us on.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at saber pod and we do
hope to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Savor is production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way
Hello, and welcome to Saber Prediction of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Anniries and I'm Lauren vogel Baum, and today we
have an episode for you about chowder.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, and a couple of rabbit holes about separate types
of chowder. Yeah, but probably could return to too many
of those.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I mean yeah, we could probably go really in depth
into specific ones, maybe especially in like a like a shorter, shorter,
offshoot SIPs episode or something like that side dish. Yeah,
but right, you know, like I guess, I guess it
was kind of starting to look into chowder and I
was thinking about it because it is as we have talked.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
About soup season.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yes, I mean, soup season lives in your heart forever,
but it does. But like the weather, it's been changing
and getting a little bit cooler. And so yeah, chowder,
so good.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Here we are. Oh, I love chowder. I go through
phases when I was a kid. I definitely would like
certain movies I associated with chowder for no real reason.
There's no rhyme or reason to why. But I would
be like, this is a movie. I need to have chowder, okay,
And I have a can of chowder. I've had it
(01:23):
for a while. I think since our Old Bay episode,
because it's an Old Bay clam chowder and I'm just waiting.
I'm just waiting for the right moment to eat it.
I'm very excited about it. I almost did it today,
but I have a lot of other stuff that's about
(01:43):
to go bad, so I have to eat that first. Sure. Yeah,
but I'm very excited about this prospect. Oh, I'm happy
for you. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I don't have any immediate chowder plans, but as soon
as I get my kid and kind of more settled
here at my new place, one of my favorite things
to make is a corn chowder, like like really simmering
the corn cobs and some broth and yeah, just cooking
everything down and making it so tasty.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah. Oh, it sounds outrageously good. Yeah I'm mad. Yeah,
I'm mad about it. Mad, but also invite me. Yeah, yeah,
there you go. That's a spirit. Yes, well, I guess
that brings us to our question, and I guess it
does chowder. Yea, what is it?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Well, chowder is a category of soups that can actually
go in a few different ways and incorporate like any
number of ingredients, depending and people enjoy arguing about which
is correct or correct like in scare quotes. I guess,
but I am going to say right here that all
chowder is good chowder and everything else is semantics.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, yeah, that's a pillow. There you go. That's a
pillow if I've ever heard one. All right.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Showders do tend to be like like hardy, a little
thickened with roo and or potatoes, more like a chunky
stew than a soup. Sometimes it really depends on your preferences,
but you've got three basic categories, white, red, and clear.
White chowders are creamy thanks to milk and or cream a.
(03:33):
Red showders incorporate tomatoes, and clear chowders use neither. Seafood
bases like clam or some kind of whitefish like cod
are pretty traditional. Many chowders incorporate preserved pork like bacon
as a flavoring, along with a few vegetables, but there
are lots of variations other fish or shellfish, chicken corn.
(03:54):
They're usually fairly mildly seasoned with some warm herbs like
thyme and bay leaf.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Chowders are like adaptable thickened soups, like a like a
soup that's thinking about getting up and stretching its legs
a bit, you know, thinking about it, thinking about it,
maybe not gonna maybe it don't.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Maybe not going to do it, but thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, they're they're like the they're like the cable net
sweaters of soups.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, oh so hungry, so hungry. Okay, with any chowder,
as with I guess pretty much any soup in general,
you're probably going to start by building flavor by sauteing
some aromatic vegetables in this case, definitely onion and celery,
And you're going to do that in the fat of
your choice in this case, like butter, bacon, grease, some
(04:47):
kind of vegetable oil, I don't know. You then add
whatever kind of broth you're using, and some seasonings, you know,
salt and pepper, herbs, maybe some white wine, maybe some spices.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Chowders usually do have chopped potato cooking down in them
for a while, and once those are basically done, you
mash them a tiny bit for body into the broth
and then add your born delicate ingredients you're cooked protein
or you're quick cooking seafood, any dairy, any veg or
herb that you want to keep fresher and then you're done,
you know, season to taste, maybe serve with crackers or
(05:20):
crusty bread. But all right, that's a very general overview.
As I said, there's a bunch of different ways to
do it. People do like arguing about it. I'm going
to pose it, however, that when most people think about showder,
they're thinking about the white kind, sometimes called New England style.
(05:43):
These take this kind of mild base that we just
went over and add richness with milk and or cream,
maybe a light roue, which is flour and butter cooked together,
or even maybe cheese. The broth based might be clam
or fish or chicken. The sort of starring green might
be any of those things, or sweet corn preferably sliced
(06:04):
fresh off the cob, and preferably some of the cobs
in your broth to get that extra flavor out. Or yeah,
maybe no protein, maybe just potato. Maybe add bacon to
the potato if you want to.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
If you put in vegetable broth, you can make it vegetarian. Meanwhile,
the red kind, sometimes called Manhattan style, is a little
sweeter like in a vegetable way, and usually spicier with
the addition of ingredients like carrots, bell peppers, garlic, red
pepper flakes, and tomato in paste or sauce or crushed form.
Your broth may still be clam or fish, or chicken
(06:39):
or vegetable, maybe even beef. You can incorporate those proteins
or not and focus on the vege. Some recipes do
start with a red base and then add a bit
of dairy at some point in the process to make
a creamy tomato situation. Best of both worlds, total abomination.
(07:00):
I can't tell you decide.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
People have opinions too. They certainly too.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
This is one of those I feel like every dish
we talk about like, I wind up saying something very controversial,
just in describing what it is.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yes, yes, oh gosh, don't come at me. Don't come
at me. Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Speaking of the third kind, the clear kind, sometimes called
Rhode Island style, this is almost always a clam chowder. Specifically,
it's a little bit lighter and a more directly clammy
than other chowders.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Might be finished with a little bit of lemon juice
and parsley.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
But yeah, this is just scratching the surface. The chowdery surface,
because like, there are all kinds of specific regional varieties
and preferences, like do you want your shellfish to be
fresh or canned? If they're fresh, do you add them
a whole in their ells and all? Or do you
(08:01):
shell them first? Do you chop them? What specific clams
do you use? What kind of fish is the fish smoked?
Do you use cream or milk and rub some of both?
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Do you use bacon or salt pork? Do you add
beans or squirrel or sausage or hot peppers? You want
to finish it with sherry or some brum you want
to serve hot sauce alongside it? How important are.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
The oyster crackers to the chowder experience? You have to
tell us. You have to write in. You have to
I need to know. Laura needs to know. I need
to know. I do love a good oyster cracker. Yeah,
not all the time, but sometimes you're just feeling it
and I have it. See, I kind of like oyster
(08:46):
crackers all on their own. I'm sort of like, oh, yeah,
this dry, flavorless thing is great. I want to eat
more of that. But it's got that like crunch. Yeah,
that's salt. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
In general, I don't like crunchy in my soup.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
But yeah, I dear sometimes I got a mix. I
like all kinds of things. You know, I prefer a
bread for dipping personally. But you know, okay, okay, well
what about the nutrition? Oh that really depends. I can't
tell you move not even going to try. Nope. Well,
(09:26):
we do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yes, okay, if you think I'm overstating the number of
variations we're working with. Here, a chef by the name
of Jasper White published a cookbook of fifty chowders back
in the year two thousand.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Fifty chowders.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, yeah, uh huh yeah. Also science fact of the episode,
the cohog clams sometimes used in like locally made New
England clam chowder can live half a century or more.
Weren't I mean, you know, like if you don't eat them.
In the early two thousands, researchers found this one clam
(10:07):
that was five hundred and seven years old, accidentally among
a catch of like a couple hundred that they took
off the coast of Iceland and immediately froze for study. Yeah,
there were headlines that were all like, scientists accidentally kill
world's oldest animal at age five hundred and seven.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Oh, man, imagine this clam. It's like, Wow, I'm living
it out, long life.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Just doing McLam best, really just experiencing it all. And
then science, science, science happens to us. All yeah, oh dear,
oh dear. M h yeah, it's it's debateable. It was
(11:02):
debatably the world's oldest oldest animal. That it depends on
how you define like corals anyway. Okay, but so, uh
another number for you. I don't think that we've talked
about this book series. Correct me if I'm wrong, But okay. So,
an author by the name of Maya Corrigan writes these
cozy mysteries under the series name Five Ingredient Mysteries, and
(11:24):
in twenty fifteen she published one called Scam Chowder.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yes, Yes, I'm in. I'm in one thousand percent.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Apparently the plot is all like this detective goes and
visits her grandpa and he's trying to like uncover this
scam artist who's been like working over this group of retirees.
And then the guy who he was trying to call
out winds up dead. At this dinner party where he
serves as clam chowder, and and he's and he's you know,
(11:59):
under suspicion of murdering the guy, and so mysteries. Yeah,
but in a cozy way, I'm sure. And there's there's
a recipe in the book. I'm sure it turns out
very well. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Okay, so I'm sure it does. Sure it does. Yes.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Also, y'all, there are a lot of chowder festivals around
the United States. Okay, a sampling for you. There's one
in New Bedford, Massachusetts that's been running for eighteen years
as of twenty twenty three end of September every year.
One in Saratoga Springs, New York that's been going for
twenty four years every February. For their twenty fifth anniversary
(12:39):
next year in twenty twenty four, they'll have some eighty
chowders available for tasting and four ounce servings for.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Two dollars apiece. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
One on Long Beach Island has been running for thirty
four years. That happens the first week in October. I
witnessed photos of people wearing clam hat. There's a chowderfest
in Santa Barbara benefiting the local Legal Aid Foundation. Apparently,
apparently there's one that's been running for over a hundred
(13:14):
years in Illinois, the Bone Gap Chowder, and they get
like they get like twenty kettles a cook in and
apparently this, this South Illinois type of chowder is very distinct.
And I'm not and I'm not sure. I'm not sure
(13:34):
about the rest of it. But the photos, the photos
of like the lines of chowder cauldrons and like the
giant stirrers and like the the fires being stoked are
really spectacular. So if this is something that you're familiar with,
oh my goodness, right, and let us know.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Oh yeah, if you been to any of these things
also curious, like the around the world, Yeah, what is it?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I understand that chowders are are also a thing in
New Zealand having come over from America.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Well, listeners, we're counting on you once again. But that
being said, we do have some history for you, Oh.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
We do, and we are going to get into that
as soon as we get back from a quick break.
For a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsors, Yes, thank you, so yes.
Chowder's history is a very mysterious one and there are
a lot of variations to take into account. We're going
to kind of do an overview for this episode. Sure,
there are a lot of variations. Essentially, soups with seafood
and vegetables have been around, especially in areas near water,
(15:00):
for a long long time, particularly in this case, perhaps
off the coast of England and France, where folks would
make these soups in large cauldrons. Some hints about chowder
specifically come from theories about etymology. You know, we love
that here. Some think it might come from the French
word for boiler.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, like a like a cauldron, like a type of
pot in which you boil stuff. The French word is
a scholtier. Sure, I don't speak French.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Let's go with that.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, And the English word cauldron does stem off of
the same late Latin root, right.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
And so some people think that this is also related
to a Latin word for heating, the name chowder, or
from a dialect local to Cornwall in the word jowder
meaning fishmonger. So all of those kind of fit who
knows mystery history. Yes, some speculate that chowder originated from
(16:07):
fishures on the Canadian coast who were trying to use
up they remaining catch, and that essentially, though the particulars
may vary, that's what most historians think happened. It's basically
like seafares had this surplus fish, or maybe they were
just making long journeys over water and they wanted to
(16:29):
do something so as not to waste that fish, and
or that's what they had on hand, which for most
ships would include things not only the fish, but things
like wine, hard tack, and salt pork.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
So chowder, Yeah, yeah, put it in a pot, boil
it together. You get a soup.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
You get a chowder. Yeah. Yes. But if you're like, wait,
that doesn't seem like the chowder, I know. Well. The
earliest known recipe for chowder dates back to a seventeen
fifty one poem that was published to the Boston Evening Post.
And please indulge me. We don't get to do a
(17:12):
lot of recipe poems.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah, on this podcast, food pems, sometimes recipes, sometimes very infrequently.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Recipe poem. Okay, yes, I'm ready. Okay, I don't know
if you are. I don't know if I am. But
here you go. First, lay some onions to keep the
pork from burning. Because in chowder, there can be no turning.
Then lay some pork and slices very thin. Thus you
and chowder always must begin. Next, lay some fish cut crossways,
(17:48):
very nice. Then season one with pepper, salt and spice, parsley,
sweet marjoram, savory and thyme. Then biscuit next, which must
be soaked some time. Thus your foundation laid, you will
be able to raise a chowder high as tower of Babel. Babel,
(18:08):
I always said, Babbel, but able whatever. For by repeating
over the same again, you may make chowder for a
thousand men the last bottle of claret, with water enough
to smother them. You'll have a mess, which some call omnium. Gatherum.
(18:32):
I feel like I just like did a spell and
I'm going to be cursed later cursed with chowder. Oh well,
then that's great. I'm happy about that. But yes, okay,
so from this poem you can tell it's still not
quite what a lot of us. But think of when
you hear chowder, So like biscuits instead of potatoes, preserved
(18:55):
pork instead of clams, red wine, no stirring, what's of herb,
layers of raw fish. But also apparently, and this was
the rabbit hole I had to cut myself off from.
It was somewhat of a fat at the time for
men to write sort of like parody poetry or like
(19:17):
tongue in cheek, serious poetry about something not really traditionally poetic.
So writing a poem about chowder.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yeah, yeah, okay, So there's two things going on here. First,
a kind of played out trend at the time was
waxing poetic very publicly in newspapers or salons about every
trifling little thing it had gotten by this time, to
(19:46):
the point where people were making fun of that trend
with this new trend of spoof poems.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Oh wow, yeah, oh well, okay, but poem, this first recipe,
as many like to call it, it might have been
a joke, but it does indicate that people in the
area were familiar with chowder at the time enough so
that it would be a joke, right sure, And most
(20:12):
sources I read believe that it was a staple in
certain parts of US and the US Eastern Coast by
the eighteen hundreds, although I also read like it might
have been more of a castrole situation than a soup
situation at the time.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, that's what it sounds like from this recipe anyway,
but hard to say, hard to say, hard to say.
I guess along similar lines with familiarity the old like
centuries old insult a jolt head morphed into chowderhead in
some English, like American English dialects. Right around the eighteen teens.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Okay, okay, and this is around the time that we
get recipes for chowder that were popping up in cookbooks
in the US. One of the first was in Lydia
Marie Childs eighteen twenty nine work The Frugal Housewife, which
still called for fish like in that poem we just read,
but the wine was absent. The herbs were also cut
(21:13):
down and replaced with ketchup beer and maybe even some clams. Yeah.
Some credit Amelia Simmons seventeen ninety six, Work American Cookery,
or more accurately, her second edition published in eighteen hundred,
which included a recipe for chowder. And here's a quote.
(21:33):
Take a bass weighing four pounds, boil half an hour,
Take six slices raw salt pork, fry them till the
lard is nearly extracted. One dozen crackers soaked in cold water.
Five minutes. Put the bass into the lard. Also the
pieces of pork and crackers, cover close and fry for
twenty minutes. Serve with potatoes, pickles, apple sauce, or mangoes,
(21:56):
garnish with green parsley. Oh okay, Yeah, that is a
fascinating recipe to me, because I like the soaking of
the crackers, and then we'd get pickles and apple sauce
or mangoes. That's a side dish.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
I add a little bit of a little bit of
tart to it. Sure, a tart a pop. Yeah. Mary
Randolph's eighteen twenty eight book The Virginia Housewife also had
a recipee for chowder, and in eighteen forty one, Sarah
Josifa Hale, often credited with convincing President Lincoln that Thanksgiving
(22:32):
should be a federal holiday, had a recipe for cod
chowder in her book The Good Housekeeper. And from this
point on, ish fish and clams became the protein choice
of chowders in this region. And one of the places
we have record of that is Herman Melville's eighteen fifty
(22:53):
one book Moby Dick. Okay, who comes up kind of
surprisingly often?
Speaker 2 (22:59):
He wrote about show he wrote about a lot in
that book, so sure, yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yes, Well, in this book, an entire chapter follows a
character's choice between clam or cod chowder. Choice Ishmael, the protagonist,
goes for clam, and here's the description. It was made
of small, juicy clams scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed
(23:25):
with pounded ship biscuits and salted pork cut up into
little flakes, the whole enriched with butter and plentifully seasoned
with pepper and salt. Sounds good. Yeah, he also likes
the cod chowder, but doesn't seem as enthused about it. Okay,
the clam one was the one, Okay. Yeah. The eighteen
(23:49):
hundreds was when chowders started appearing on New England menus
as well.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yeah, and by the eighteen fifties it was certainly popular
in New England. In John Russell Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms
from eighteen fifty nine, we get this definition chowder a
favorite dish in New England, made of fish, pork, onions,
and biscuits stewed together. Cider and champagne are sometimes added.
Picnic parties to the seashore generally have a dish of
(24:16):
chowder prepared by themselves in some grove near the beach
from fish caught at the same time.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yeah. Well, the milk didn't really come into the mix
until later. Most early recipes left it out, using potatoes
or crackers in water to achieve a level of creaminess.
An eighteen eighty recipe out of Miss Parloa's New Cookbook
claimed milk was optional, but did call for boiling, suggesting
(24:46):
that it had moved away from castrole and more towards soup.
And it also suggests that it had really solidified itself
as a part of New England cuisine in a time
when there was sort of a colonial revival happening in
the region. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yeah, it was the one hundredth anniversary ish of the
Declaration of Independence and people were feeling very nostalgic, right.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
And this also seems to be the time that other
chowders started popping up in places that didn't have access
to clams, like corn chowders, smoke salmon chowders, squirrel meat
chowders again future episodes.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah yeah, maybe maybe yeah, Because the dish's popularity was
moving Inland where, especially in this time before refrigeration or
canning had really taken off, Like right around the turn
of the century here you just couldn't get seafood Inland,
(25:49):
and as always, people substitute what's plentiful and popular. The
Boston Cooking School cookbook published a recipe for corn chowder
in eighteen eighty four, and by the end of the
century there were more recipes for corn chowder around the
US than any other type.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Wow, it reminds me a lot of like episodes we've
done on oysters and lobster, where when they moved inland,
all of these things, now these substitutes happened. Yeah, which
speaking of not necessarily the same, but tomato based Manhattan
clam chowder, which you talked about at the top orient
(26:29):
The first known recipe of that was published in nineteen
thirty four, and that particular chowder has historically drawn a
lot of iron up to the point that a legislator
in Maine tried to outlaw it in nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Or just like specifically to outlaw putting tomatoes in a chowder.
And apparently under had this law been passed, guilty offenders
would have been sentenced to digging up a barrel of
clams at high tide, which is apparently in popossible. I
don't know how clams work.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Oh my gosh. Yeah, listeners, please write in Yeah, here's
a quote from this whole thing. No person of taste
and culture actually is going to put tomatoes in their
clam chowder. Wow. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
And the legislator who put forth that bill one representative
Cleveland Sleeper, which is a great name. He never got
the bill to go anywhere, but he did not let
his cause go. Later, in nineteen thirty nine, he set
up a sort of like stunt cookoff where he pitted
chefs of the white and Red style against each other,
(27:43):
and a panel of judges declared the White style the winner,
though notably all of those judges were from New England.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
So hmm uh, I see, I've never had this Manhattan style.
I need to get it that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Yeah, it's a it's a different it's a it's a
different experience.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
It's a different thing. Yeah. Okay, Well, clearly people are
fiercely opinionated about it. Ye eleanor early author of the
book New England Sampler, wrote of this Manhattan style clam chowder,
it is only a vegetable soup and not to be
(28:25):
confused with New England clam chowder, nor spoken of in
the same breath. Tomatoes and clams have no more affinity
than ice cream and horseradish. Dang oh yep, all right,
but there are a lot of different styles. New Jersey
(28:49):
apparently created their own version around this time, with tomatoes, cream, disparagus, bacon,
and light cream seasoned with old bay, among other things.
Florida has their own version two men or Can minor
Can clam chowder. I'm not sure, Please correct, Please correct
(29:10):
me if I'm wrong. It's similar to Manhattan clam chowder,
but it has the key addition of daddle daytil pepper,
a pepper indigenous to Cuba that was introduced to Florida
centuries ago. People are very passionate about that one as well.
So also there's Rhode Island style, There's North Carolina style,
(29:31):
there's San Francisco style, there's Cabo style. Probably all emerged
around this time too, And I mean soups do leave
themselves to adaptation and experimentation, so it makes sense. The
dairy versus non dairy versions were also largely based on resources,
(29:52):
so it was sort of like, can we get this?
Can we not and that's a soup. That's the soup story.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, oh yeah, And you know flavor profiles that you
grew up with and whether or not you want something
to be creamy or vegetable, or it would be some
combination of the two.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Right, And I will say, like throughout this research, clam
chowder was is a dish that really seemed to straddle
being a poor man's food, especially in some regions, and
then something nicer, like a really nice dish. And if yeah,
if you go back to like our oyster episode, clams
(30:32):
used to be really plentiful in that area. It was
something indigenous people of the region have been enjoying responsibly
for many years. So it was sort of like available,
but it could be made very fancy. It was. It
was a really interesting example of something that was both.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah yeah, or that like had been for a long
time just you know, like what you ate because that
was what you had versus right when that kind of
nostalgia started kicking in and you started going like, oh
and like now I can afford to finish it with
cherry or whatever it is that it.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Is and doing that kind of thing to it. Yeah, yeah,
and I really would love to hear from listeners about
this because for me, like it's I got it from
a can and I liked it. It was nice even
like getting it from a can, it felt like a
nice occasion for me. Yeah, but I would love to
hear from people in the region who you can get
(31:32):
it fresh, and you can get it in a can,
and you, I don't know, fancy it up in all
these different ways.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, I feel like when when I was a kid anyway,
like it was sort of if there was one on
like a restaurant menu, I felt very fancy indeed ordering it.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, it does feel fancy, which is so fascinating. Yeah,
but I think I will I got my can. I
think I'm going to watch a Halloween movie eat my
my chowder. Yeah, I'm so excited for you. Heck yah, Yes,
(32:12):
I'm excited to thank you. But yes, listeners please write in,
but this is what we have to say about chowder
for now.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
We do already have some listener mail for you, and
we are going to get into that as soon as
we get back from another quick break forward from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with listener man like leaves. Oh yeah, I
feel like when I want a good a good cup
of chowder, the leaves are falling. Yeah. Cool night and
(33:01):
I'm wrapped in my blanket.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Oh my gosh, something bloody is happening on television.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
It's fantastic what I want? Which we do have to
kind of Halloween adjacent, so follows Halloween to Me, Halloween
Messages from listeners. Okay, okay. Starting with Eric Arc wrote,
does Halloween season ever have to end? Not reals? Twizzlers
(33:35):
is one of those candies that I think you get
a craving for. Occasionally you forget about them and then suddenly, hmmm,
I could go for some Twizzlers. That is what happened
to me before listening to the episode. I was at
the store, saw them and said, it's been a while,
grab a pack, and then the episode pops up into
my feed later. Great time. I agree with Lauren on
(33:58):
the mini's they taste this same, but something does feel
different about the texture. A big thank you to you
and Melanie on that soup recipe. Made it for dinner
today and wow, so simple and yet so complex. This
is definitely going into my Fall slash Winter soup list.
Love to the Caustic Worcestershire episode, another versatile sauce. I
(34:24):
like to throw a dash or two into eggs when
whisking them up for scrambled eggs, as just a little
bit of extra flavor. As you noted, there is a
difference between the US and the UK version. Several places
do import the UK version. Look for an orange label.
There is a taste difference, but it is not wildly
(34:44):
different to my memory. Definitely worth a try if you can,
to see if you would prefer one to the other.
Hmm hmm, okay, okay, okay, just to shear taste test.
Oh my gosh, I'm really into that. I feel like
I've neglected this idea that you can't do taste tests
(35:06):
with like literally everything, Like I've always kind of pigeonholed
it and that it's like a wine taste test or
but you Yeah, somebody was telling me the other day
about some taste tests they did and I was like, oh, yeah, absolutely,
so yes into that. I love that you tried the soup.
(35:30):
We have more soup recipes than this was the sentence
that we've read will read, and that's very fun and exciting.
I love soup so I'm so excited by it, just
sharing sharing this soup love Yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah
the Twizzlers I love that. Uh you agree with Lauren
(35:52):
on these minis, I love a lot of people had
thoughts about Twizzlers. Yeah, They're definitely a if they come
my way maybe type of candy. Okay, all right, Yeah
twizzlers are sometimes food. Sure, yes, but that makes the
next thing all the more fun.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yes, okay, all right, So Hannah wrote, I just listened
to your Twizzlers episode and I realized it was time
to tell you about something we have done at my work.
I make handmade wigs for a living, which means that
I'm My coworkers spend a lot of time sitting around
doing fiddlely handwork and chatting. We also, like any workplace,
have a fondness for snacks. One day, we were talking
(36:35):
about candies and one of my coworkers was trying to
figure out which candy would be best to bring in
in order to make the most people happy. At the time,
there were probably about six or seven people regularly coming
in and out of the studio, and even with only
seven people we couldn't do it. We spent the afternoon
suggesting candies that we were sure must be universally liked kitcats.
(36:55):
Someone said, who doesn't like KitKat? I raised my hand.
I mean they're fine, I guess, but they don't have
much going for them. What about reces? I've never met
someone who didn't like a rece's cup. Another coworker made
a face. I like peanut butter and I like chocolate,
but I just don't like them together. We threw up
our hands. It was too much. At this point, we
couldn't even keep track of what we had already discussed. Finally,
(37:17):
my most organized coworker wrote down a list of all
the candies that we could think of. We sorted them
on a binary system, one for like, zero four do
not like. No consensus, not a single universally liked candy.
But then we began to question the system. How much
does one have to like a candy to give it
(37:37):
a one? Would they happily eat the candies that weren't
their favorites if they were free? Or were there things
they would truly refuse? Over the years, our system has
developed into a spreadsheet with four numbered categories. Zero being
will not eat under any circumstances, One being will eat
(37:58):
if provided, but would never spend money on two being,
will absolutely spend money on three being an absolute favorite. Now,
our staff has changed over the years, and not everyone
who was there for the original binary list was still
there by the birth of the four step system. We
have kept the binary data because I mean, I'm not
(38:18):
going to lose data, but it is kept separately from
the complete data. Once everyone currently working had responded, we
were able to add up the numbers and sort out data,
and the winner. The only candy with only ratings of
twos and threes was drum Roll Please Twizzlers pull and peel.
(38:43):
I had to laugh when it sounded like the two
of you are not big fans. Clearly, our small sample
size here at work does not provide universal answers. This,
of course also led to an argument between people who
peel saying humans and people who bite the whole thing psychopath.
The second most highly rated candy with two fewer overall
(39:05):
points is the original Twizzlers. Interestingly, the people at our
company who prefer red vines all also like Twizzlers, while
the people who prefer Twizzlers all despise red vines. In
case you need to know, the top ten candies according
to the custom Wig Company official candy rating system are Twizzlers,
(39:27):
Pull and Peel, Twizzlers, Reese's Cups, Peanut Butter, m and
MS Fast Break. Clearly it's just our one peanut butter
chocolate hater keeping the peebee down, toblerone, Hershey's Kisses, Chewy Spree, Rollos, Butterfinger.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
The lowest rated five are black Licorice, Razzles, Neco Wafers, Jawbreakers,
and bit of Honey. And I bet you can guess
the only candy was straight ones, making it the only
candy with absolute consensus. Dumb dumbsuckers. Now, I could analyze
the candy data all day, and we sometimes do, but
(40:10):
I will let you go happy spooky slash candy seasoneh.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Wow, amazing. I mean, I appreciate the work, the dedication,
the research. That's second delightful.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
That's great, so good, that's really terrific.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
It's excellent. And I also I'm I'm like, legitimately, I
am so fascinated by these results. Yeah, there are some
candies I've never heard on there. What's a razzle? I'm
(40:53):
I love this, this is great. I love how people
have opinion on candy. They're like, even if you don't
eat candy that much like me? Yeah no.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Also, Also, how did Chewy Spreese get on the top
list and Necho Wafers on the bottom list when it's
the same flavor profile.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Just one is Chewy. We have follow up questions for
your research, please.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
I'm sorry sprees are more tart. That's I was, but
they saw the same like powdery aftertaste that I anyway,
huh huh.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
I love this. I love this so much.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
I do self associate with the whole like, like, because
I'm a fan of Twizzlers and I do not appreciate
a red vine.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
I'm like, what is that?
Speaker 2 (41:44):
No?
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Thank you? Yeah, I feel like you've really uncovered some
yeah important data here. And I love also how you
didn't throw away your previous data. You got to keep
all the data.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, yeah, you know, we just need a larger sample
size too.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
T Whizzler's cool and Peel. I can't wait to tell
my friend. She's gonna be outraged. It's gonna be great, wow, beautiful. Yes,
thank you so much for sharing that, And thank you
to both of these listeners for writing in. If you
would like to write to as you can. Our email
is hello at saborpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
We're also hypothetically on social media.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
You can find us on.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at saber pod and we do
hope to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Savor is production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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