[Sca-cooks] chowder - OOP

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach Robin Carroll-Mann:
>On 16 Jul 2002, at 9:25, Erika Thomenius wrote:
>
>>  In addition, there is a reference in _Moby Dick_ (1851):
>>
>>  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.
>>
>>
>>
>>  Now, there's no cream, no potatoes, and the addition of salt pork
>>  (which this particular Chowder Purist is willing to accept as canon),
>>  but there are also no tomatoes.
>
>I am a Universalist as far as chowder is concerned, so I have no
>axe to grind.  I don't think that a description of shipboard chowder
>will tell us a lot about its preparation on land.  Sailors on a long
>whaling voyage would not have easy access to either milk or
>tomatoes.

Hmmm. As I recall, the passage above refers to a chowder found in a
New Bedford boarding house. For the record and all. Another
consideration is that some people travelling in the 19th century may
have seen canned tomatoes (which are pretty old as canned food goes)
as a good bet to fight both scurvy and thirst. I remember this
subject coming up with Gunthar as we discussed how tomatoes might
have made it into the modern canon for Texas chili, when it used to
be considered heretical (at least that was my understanding, based on
reading Tolbert's "A Bowl of Red", etc.). It may have been added by
range cooks (in the case of chili) and by galley cooks onboard ship
(for chowder) as a substitute for precious, potable water. Same
scenario for any of various preserved tomato products, such as
ketchup.

Adamantius

--
"No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes
deserves to be called a scholar."
	-DONALD FOSTER