Chowder Time
There are two types of clam chowder worth eating. One is made in New
England, the other in the Chesapeake Bay area of Maryland and Virginia.
My mother, who made both remarkably well, grew up a redneck girl way
down yonder in Little Dixie, and by all rights and pretenses never should’ve
had the opportunity to learn how to make either, but then the Japs bombed Pearl
Harbor and flip-flopped possibilities for lots of things, and the rest, as they
say, is history.
That war brought Mom and Dad together (so to speak), and she spent the
rest of her life following dad’s naval career over half the world and
absolutely every watery niche of the U.S.A. pulling me along with her. When we
lived in New England, she learned how to make New England clam chowder. When we
lived on the Chesapeake, she learned how to make Chesapeake chowder, a far, far
greater thing than she had ever learned to cook before down yonder in Little
Dixie.
Of the two, I preferred Chesapeake chowder. It lacked the rich, hot
and smooth cream base of the New England chowder, and didn’t have the thick
potato chunks of the New England, but, instead, had shredded, uncooked hash
browns that had the advantage of throwing more of the taste of the clams in it
down the back of your throat, and poured into and out of a thermos bottle
easier than the other. I have eaten gallons of both.
Dad and I took mom’s Chesapeake chowder down to the shore in an old fashioned glass lined thermos, the kind that broke when you looked at them hard, to pass shoot redheads and canvasbacks that in season whistled daily over a point jutting out into the Chesapeake Bay a block from our house. I have always felt the chowder kept us from freezing to death. Maybe not. Back then, at age six and seven, I had an imagination that has since left me.
Mom made her last big pot of Chesapeake chowder, to my knowledge, when
she was eighty-five years old. I stood over her, watching and remembering
carefully, as she did it, fully aware that it might be her last, and it was.
That would have been 2010, five years after Katrina and the heartache it
brought her. I did, already, know how to make it from former, happier times,
but I wrote it all down anyway.
Here it is:
Ingredients — Three cans of clams, chopped or whole, dealer’s choice.
One whole onion, either white or yellow. Three stalks of celery. Two slices of
bacon. One tablespoon salt. One tablespoon black pepper. Approximately one
pound of shredded, uncooked hash browns. Half stick real butter. Two cloves
garlic or equal amount of minced garlic from jar. Two quarts water. One
two-quart soup kettle.
Recipe — Heat the soup kettle over medium heat. Rough chop the bacon
and cook in kettle until starting to brown. Leave the grease in there. Add half
stick of butter. Add chopped onion and celery and allow to cook until
transparent. Mix in the salt and pepper. Pour in one quart of water and bring
to a boil. Add one pound of hash browns and bring kettle to boil again. Add all
three cans of clams including the juice from the cans. If you add the clams too
early, it will make them tough. Bring kettle to a full boil again, and then
turn heat down to a simmer and leave alone for one-half hour, which is about
all you will be able to stand.
The resultant chowder will not be white like a New England chowder,
but a rather opaque grey or light green. You can add all sorts of additional
spices of your choice, including hot sauce, but I never do. Cajuns didn’t
invent chowder. Whalers and baymen did, and they were too poor to have much
more than the bare necessities: clams, salt, pepper, and a little celery.
It’s spicy enough for me with all the onions, celery, and black
pepper. What I have just given you is the real deal Chesapeake chowder recipe
as given to my mother by a local back in 1951 when we lived on the Bay. Why
mess with it? Just because you can?
Why are we talking about chowder, anyway? Because it’s chowder time.
Cold, blustery weather drives even the hardiest hunters and fishermen indoors
to the kitchen table, and I’m not so hardy anymore at that.
I’m done. I’ve got a pot simmering in the kitchen right now. I’ve been
smelling it for the last half-hour. I’d give you some, but you’re not here.
Are you?
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