New
Yorker's insist on tomatoes in their chowder and call it Manhattan clam
chowder. Cookbook writer and chef James Beard (1903-1985) described
Manhattan clam chowder as:
". . . that rather horrendous soup called Manhattan clam chowder. . . resembles a vegetable soup soup that accidentally had some clams
dumped into it."
Connecticut chowder seems to be yet another version of the Manhattan-style clam chowder,
made with tomatoes in place of milk.
Introduction of the
Tomato -
Tomato-based clam chowders came about with the new-found popularity
of the tomato in the mid-1800s and the large population of Italians in New York and the
Portuguese fishing communities of Rhode Island. By the 1930s, this tomato version had come
to be called Manhattan clam chowder.
Histsory of Manhattan Clam Chowder
Some historians
say that Manhattan clam chowder was originally called Coney
Island Clam Chowder and/or Fulton Market Clam Chowder.
Both of these names were used in the 1890s.
Both of the below
cookbooks, written by Alessandro Filippini and Charles Ranhofer, who both
worked at the famous Delmonice's Restaurant in New York at different times,
were considered as most important cook books in modern cooking. Since nearly everything that Delmonic's
Restaurant
served was widely imitated, it is certain that several New York upscale restaurants
probably sold a version of tomato-based clam chowder, today known as Manhattan Clam
Chowder.
1889 - Alessandro Filippini was Delmonico
chef du maison from 1849 to 1863. Alessandro Filippini helped Lorenzo
Delmonico guide Delmonico''s Restaurant to the height of culinary
excellence. In 1889, Fillippini wrote his now famous cookbook called
The Table: How to
Buy Food, How to Cook It, and How to Serve It,
which was written for the non-professional home cook. This is
his recipe - word for word for tomato-based clam chowder:
Wash six fine,
medium sized potatoes, peel and cut them into small dice-shaped pieces,
wash again in fresh water, take them up with a skimmer; place them in a
stewpan large enough to hold three quarts. Immediately add two quarts of
cold water (not placing the pan on the fire until so mentioned.) Peel
one medium sized, sound onion, chop it up very fine, and place it on a
plate. Take a quarter of a bunch of well-washed parsley greens
(suppressing the stalks), place it with the onions; wash well two stalks
of soup celery, chop it up very fine, place it with the parsley and
onions, and add all these in the stewpan. Place the pan on a brisk fire.
Season with a light pinch of salt, adding at the same time a light
tablespoonful of good butter. Let all cook until the potatoes are nearly
done; eighteen minutes will be sufficient. Cut from a piece of fresh
pork, CROSSWISE, one slice a third of an inch thick, then cut it in
pieces a third of an inch square, fry, and reduce it in a pan on the hot
stove for four minutes. Add it to the broth, add also three-quarters of
a teaspoonful of branch dry thyme. Lightly scald four medium-sized
tomatoes, peel and cut them into small pieces and add them to the
preparation. Open and place in a bowl twenty-four medium-sized, fine,
clams; pour into another bowl half of their juice. Place the clams on a
wooden board, cut each one into four equal pieces, and immediately
plunge them into the pan with the rest; gently mix so as to prevent
burning at the bottom while boiling, for two minutes. Range the pan on
the corner of the stove to keep warm. Season with a saltspoonful black
pepper, one tablespoonful of Worchestershire sauce, gently stir the
whole with a wooden spoon; break in two pilot crackers in small pieces
stir a little again. Leave two minutes longer in the same position, but
under on circumstances allow to boil. Pour into a hot soup-tureen, and
serve.
1894 -
Charles
Ranhofer (1836-1899), the celebrated French chef at the famous Delmonico's restaurant
in New York
from 1862 to 1896.
In his 1894 edition of his cookbook The
Epicurean: A Complete Treatise of Analytical & Practical Studies, has a recipe for
a tomato-based clam chowder called
Clam
Chowder (Chowder de Lucines):
Clam Chowder (Chowder de Lucines) - Prepare
a quarter of a pound of well chopped fat pork, a small bunch of parsley chopped not too
fine, four ounces of chopped onions, one and a half quarts of potatoes cut in
seven-sixteenth of an inch squares; two quarts of clams retaining all the juice possible;
one quart of tomatoes peeled, pressed and cut in half inch squares. Put the fat pork into
a saucepan, and when fried, add the onions to fry for one minute, then the potatoes, the
clams and the tomatoes; should there not be sufficient moistening, pour in a little water
and boil the whole until the potatoes are well done. Add five pilot crackers broken up
into very small bits; one soup spoonful of thyme leaves, two ounces of butter, a very
little pepper and salt to taste. This quantity will make four gallons, sufficient for
sixty persons.
20th Century
1939 -
In February 1939, a bill was
introduced by Assemblyman Seeder to the Maine legislature to make it a
statutory and culinary offense to put tomatoes into chowder.