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CHOWDER (an American dish)
Fry a quarter of a pound of pickled pork, which has been cut into dice, and a small minced onion, in hot butter or lard, till they are a deep brown. Put half of this at the bottom of a saucepan, place over it a soup-plateful of mashed potatoes, and over that some thick slices of uncooked sea bass or turbot, about four pounds in weight, the remainder of the pork and onions, and on the top, a second layer of potatoes. Season with half a nutmeg grated, a tea-spoonful of powdered mace, five or six cloves, a table-spoonful of savoury herbs--of which one-third should be thyme, one-third parsley, and one-third marjoram--a tea-spoonful of salt, and four of five white peppercorns. Pour over all half a bottle of claret, half a bottle to ketchup and sufficient water to cover it. Let it simmer gently until the fish is cooked. Probable cost; pork, 11d., fish, 8d. to 10d. per pound. Sufficient for five or six persons.
An unusual chowder: no milk, no biscuit, and a heavy hand with wine and spice. It is essentially a layered fish braise, and the layering is the point.
- Do not stirThe dish is built in strata and left alone; stirring breaks the fish into shreds and turns the potato to sludge. Simmer covered, barely bubbling, and serve by lifting sections out with a broad spoon.
- Ketchup means mushroom or walnut ketchupKetchup here most likely means mushroom or walnut ketchup -- in a Victorian British kitchen an unqualified "ketchup" was usually a thin, dark, intensely salty mushroom-based condiment rather than anything tomato. Half a bottle of modern tomato ketchup would make the pot sweet and thick; use a bottled mushroom ketchup, or substitute a mixture of mushroom stock and a little Worcestershire and anchovy, and hold back the added salt until you taste.
- Pickled porkSalt pork, brine-cured and unsmoked. Streaky bacon or pancetta works, though both are smokier; blanch briefly if very salty.
- Half a bottleIf a modern 750 ml wine bottle is meant, about 375 ml / 13 imperial fl oz of claret. The size of the ketchup bottle is not stated and need not be the same. Claret here means dry red Bordeaux or any dry, unoaked red.
- A soup-plateful of mashed potatoesThe recipe specifies a soup-plateful for the lower layer only and leaves the second, top layer unquantified; allow roughly 1.5 to 2 lb of potatoes in all. Mash them plainly, without much butter or milk, so they hold their shape in the liquid.
- The fishTurbot is expensive and sea bass is now often farmed; any firm white fish in thick steaks or loin pieces will do -- cod, hake, monkfish, halibut. Four pounds is the weight for five or six people, bones included if you use steaks.
- SpicingHalf a grated nutmeg plus a teaspoon of mace is very assertive by current taste. A quarter nutmeg and half a teaspoon of mace gives the same character without overwhelming the fish.
- "Until the fish is cooked"With thick slices in a gentle simmer, 20 to 25 minutes; the flesh should just part at the thickest point. Longer and it goes cottony, and the potato collapses into the wine.
- CostsThe pence figures are Victorian retail prices and are of historical interest only.
Chowder is generally traced to the French chaudi\though though the derivation is disputed and other origins have been proposed. By the nineteenth century the American versions had settled into layers of salt pork, onion, fish and ship's biscuit or potato, moistened with water, milk or wine -- the milk-thickened chowder most people now picture is only one branch of the family, and a comparatively late one. Cassell's flags this as "an American dish" because it was still foreign to British kitchens, and its version leans on claret and mushroom ketchup, with a spice cupboard of nutmeg, mace and cloves. The result is a good record of how a regional dish was received as it crossed the Atlantic in the other direction.