[Sca-cooks] Yankees, Hash, and Beets, was and still is: Winter comfort food...

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Dec 6, 2005, at 4:17 PM, Jeff Gedney wrote:

> Heck, I aint no "down-eastah"... I'm just from a long
> line of "Connecticut Swamp yankees".
>
> You wanna discuss chowdah, do that...
> Just dont pass off that watery tomato and clam soup as
> chowdah.... them's fighting words!
>
> Chowdah is white as snow, thick as perdition, and tasty
> as sin. Anything else is just soup.
>
> And if it dont start with rendering fatback it dont
> count.
>
> But that is my humble, yankee-fied, opinion.
> Yours may vary (if it does, though, I'll ignore it ;) )

I have, literally, seen chowder with tomatoes thrown away amid  
charges of heresy. And while I usually hate the standard "Manhattan"  
chowder, that's because it's so often made badly, and, Heaven help  
us, is largely maligned because it's easier to make _and put in cans_  
than the alleged New England variety.

However, if we're going to talk stylistic legitimacy, chowder  
containing tomatoes A) comes originally from New England and could  
very easily be argued to have migrated from places like Newport to  
Block Island to Montauk to Manhattan, and B) is about as old in  
written recipe form as the white stuff.

I can see people from Maine getting all worked up about this, but the  
concept that one style is more legitimate than the other is clearly  
the result of revisionist history. If you put a nice bowl of creamy  
"New England" clam or fish chowder in front of an early 19th century  
sea captain, he might eat it and like it, but he probably wouldn't  
say it was like mother used to make. And he might even add a jot of  
tomato ketchup to it.

Personal preference is another matter entirely -- I won't argue  
articles of faith ;-).

Adamantius, currently with a pot of each type on the stove -- don't  
ask...




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04