Right in the heart of Borneo, in the town of Sibu, was a little girl who wondered what chowder was.
She read many books in English and once she came across a family having lunch in Vermont and they had seafood chowder.
She knew the word Chow, as a term for food or meal. It was probably an army term.
Well as for the word chowder, it was completely new to her. She never knew that it was a thick soup until she was much older and had a better dictionary. Recipe books in those days were also not available.
Today Google provides more than one answer for her :
The word ‘chowder’ comes from the Old English word for a fish peddler, ‘jowter,’ and the French word ‘chauderée,’ which is a thick fish soup that has been common in the coastal regions of France as far back as the 16th and 17th centuries. Long-simmering fish and vegetable stews were a staple dish of poor fishermen in nearly any region with a strong fishing heritage. French fish stews most likely made their way to the New World with the French fishermen who settled on the Canadian coast. As the people migrated south, they brought their recipes with them.
WHY DO WE SERVE CHOWDER WITH CRACKERS? From the beginning, a chowder was different from these traditional fish stews because chowder made use of salt pork and ship’s biscuits (think saltine crackers) for flavor and as a thickener.
One day when she grew up, and to her great delight, she was served a bowl of FRESH Seafood Chowder , from a very good restaurant. She was visiting her retired teachers in Cornwall.
No comments:
Post a Comment