Fish Chowder
The best fish for chowder are haddock and striped bass, although any kind of fresh fish may be used. Cut in pieces over an inch thick and two inches square; place eight good-sized slices of salt pork in the bottom of an iron pot and fry till crisp; remove the pork, leaving the fat, chop fine, put in the pot a layer of fish, a layer of split crackers, and some of the chopped pork with black and red pepper and chopped onions, then another layer of fish, another of crackers and seasoning, and so on. Cover with water, and stew slowly till the fish is perfectly done; remove from the pot, put in dish in which you serve it and keep hot, thicken the gravy with rolled cracker or flour, boil it up once and pour over the chowder. Some add a little catsup, port wine and lemon juice to the gravy just before taking up, but I think it nicer without them.-Mrs. Woodworth, Springfield, Mass.
A layered, milkless chowder of the older New England type. The recipe gives no quantities beyond the pork, so treat it as a method and scale to your pot.
- Working quantitiesThe recipe fixes nothing but the pork. For eight slices of salt pork, something like 2 to 2 1/2 lb of skinless fish, two medium onions, and enough crackers for three or four layers works out; that should serve about six as a main course.
- The crackers"Split crackers" means the common cracker or pilot biscuit -- hard, only lightly salted, split through the equator like an English muffin. Saltines tend to collapse into paste; unsalted water crackers or oyster crackers hold up better, though they are lighter than the original.
- Red pepperCayenne, used sparingly. Black and red pepper together turn up regularly in chowder recipes of this period.
- Don't stir itThe layering is the whole point. Once the pot is built, leave it alone — stirring shreds the fish and turns the crackers to mush. Lift the finished chowder out with a broad skimmer rather than a spoon.
- Cooking time"Stew slowly till the fish is perfectly done" is 12 to 20 minutes at a bare simmer for inch-thick pieces, not the long boil the phrase suggests. Haddock flakes the moment it turns opaque; past that it goes to threads.
- The fishHaddock and striped bass, the two the recipe names, both still work; it also allows any kind of fresh fish, and a firm white fish will do.
- Cover with waterJust barely. Render the pork fat first, and add water only to the top layer. The crackers absorb liquid as it cooks, and an over-filled pot gives a thin broth that no amount of rolled cracker will save.
- The gravyA tablespoon or two of flour slaked in cold water, or a handful of crushed crackers, is enough. Boil once and pour over; it should coat, not set.
- Catsup and portThe catsup could be mushroom or walnut as easily as tomato; the older dark, salty sorts were often built on anchovy, and Worcestershire is the nearest thing on a modern shelf if you want to try the variation she declines.
This is chowder before milk, the older form that was common and persistent in New England cookbooks through the middle of the nineteenth century, though milk-thickened versions also circulated well before the century's end: salt pork, fish, hard crackers and water, built in layers in an iron pot. The word is generally traced to the French chaudière, the cauldron in which fishermen along the North Atlantic coast cooked a common pot from the day's catch, though the derivation is traditional rather than documented. Crackers were structural, not a garnish — the split biscuit soaked up broth and thickened the pot, doing the work that potatoes and cream would take over later. That Buckeye Cookery, compiled in landlocked Ohio and published in Minneapolis in 1877, carries a fish chowder from a contributor in Springfield, Massachusetts is characteristic of the book: it was assembled from letters and household manuscripts sent in from across the country, and the regional attributions were part of the appeal.