Chowder Chatter

Yesterday I put the ingredients for ham chowder in the crock pot and turned it on low when we left the house at about 9 a.m. to go to the monthly retreat of dh's prayer group. When we got back at about 4:30 p.m. it was cooked, but still not ready; the potatoes had not yet started falling apart. We ate it about 8 p.m. and it was great! Recipe below (modified from one I found on Recipezaar).

Since what I made called ham chowder, it got me to thinking, What exactly is a chowder, anyway? Sure, it's a soup, but what makes a soup a chowder?

So I got to reckoning. Let's see, the one I am most familiar with is clam chowder, and I made ham chowder so maybe the vital criterion for a chowder is that the first word in its name rhyme with am.

Nah. That can't be it.

Maybe it has to be white. Yeah, it should have milk and potatoes in it, and be cooked so long that the potatoes start disintegrating apart. Hm. Well, but back when I was a kid my mom used to make a wonderfully delicious potato soup that had milk in it and the ´taters would be falling apart, only we always called it just potato soup and never chowder.

Then this morning I Googled What is a chowder? and got the following results back:

Definitions of Chowder on the Web:

A thick soup that usually contains potatoes.
www.newitalianrecipes.com/cooking-terms.html

A half-soup, half-stew of vegetables, fish or other foods.
www.cyberpathway.com/whispers/food/cookterm.htm

Creamy soup originating from the west coast of the USA , usually made with corn, potato and shell fish.
www.scec.com.au/services/food_beverage/glossary.cfm

a milk based soup, usually containing seafood.
www.biglove.lvhr.com/recipes/glossary1.html

a thick soup, almost a stew, usually based on fish and/or seafood.
www.great-cooking-made-easy.com/glossary-A-C.html

A soup, usually thick and made with vegetables or seafood, especially corn or clams.
www.glencoe.com/sec/busadmin/marketing/dp/rest_mgmt/gloss.shtml

a thick soup or stew made with milk and bacon and onions and potatoes
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Chowder is any of a variety of soups, enriched with salt pork fatback and thickened with flour, or more traditionally with crushed ship biscuit or saltine crackers, and milk. To some Americans, it means clam chowder, made with cream or milk in most places, or with tomato as "Manhattan clam chowder." Corn chowder is a thick soup filled with whole corn (maize) kernels. Chowder is often commonly associated with New England cuisine.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chowder

According to the above, some people consider potatoes a vital ingredient, while others say it's usually made with some kind of seafood. Bacon figures prominently in several versions. Some mention milk; others do not. Once definition has chowder originating on the west coast of the USA, but another states that it is "more often commonly associated with New England cuisine." A lot of the definitions use the word "thick."

So I still don't know, and the world may never know just exactly what makes soup a chowder. And hey, I may not know much about food, but I know what I like.


Crock Pot Ham Chowder

All quantities are approximate, so don't worry if you're a little short on some ingredients and long on others.

4 cups peeled, cubed potatoes
1/2 cup diced onion
1 cup diced celery
1 cup cubed ham
1 can whole kernal corn (I prefer white corn over the sweet yellow corn)
2 boullion cubes (chicken, beef, or vegetable)
2/3 cup powdered milk
Water

Put potatoes, onion, celery, ham, corn, and boullion cubes in the slow cooker. Add enough water to cover the other ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 9-10 hours or high for 5-6. When potatoes are starting to fall apart, add the powdered milk and stir well; cook about another half hour, then serve.

Yield: Four to six hearty servings.


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