WTF is Rhode Island Clam Chowder?
The Answer Ain’t Clear…
Growing up in Rhode Island, seafood was very much part of anyone’s day to day. Much of New England is coastal; for Little Rhody, there are few places more than 25 minutes away from salt water. So it was Fish & Chips on Fridays during Lent. It was also Fish & Chips on Friday during the rest of the year. Or Triangle Fishwiches, with cheese, for countless school lunches. Diners were rated by their fried clam strips and “uptown” joints by what came with the baked stuffed schrod. Boxes of Gorton’s fish sticks or their nasty fried scallops were jammed in between corn niblets in every freezer. Stuffed quahogs, from shacks or supermarkets, were summertime sustenance. Calamari with cherry peppers was a mandatory appetizer and you got twin lobsters with steamers on your birthday. Or on somebody else’s birthday. Or on any given Sunday because crustaceans & clams weren’t always the financial burden they are now.
Smack in the center of this sea feed cornucopia sat Clam Chowder. It was consumed all the time simply because it was always in front of you. Restaurant entrees, whether swordfish or lasagna, usually included a cup. Partnered with cole slaw it made up the duet of albino freebies forming the cornerstones of Yankee Cuisine
New England clam chowder — the white stuff — was dominant style in the state, just as it was in the other five of the region. Still is, hence the name. Red chowder was also very common, solidly in second place, especially along the southern coast. At some places it was even the only option. One of these was Rhode Island’s long-dead-but-once-freakin’-awesome family attraction: Rocky Point Amusement Park. Lined with endless tables, the park’s Shore Dinner Hall served military amounts of seafood: lobsters (boiled), fish (baked or fried) and clams (baked stuffed, fried, steamed or caked) Rocky Point also served its Narragansett clams chowdered— in a broth as red as a fireplace brick. On output alone, if any chowder had claim to the title of Rhode Island it was the scarlet voodoo served at the Hall. Dunking in those squishy-crisp clam balls made for a magic meal. Weird magic, for sure, but the kind which made for savory & textural childhood recollections later on.
Would you like to know what was in third place for chowder consumption? If anything, it was probably white fish chowder. Possibly corn chowder. There was even a chance it was beef stew chowder but it was absolutely never that clear junk. You know, that transparent potage you might have been calling Rhode Island Clam Chowder for the last ten years or so? There is no arguing that that stuff was around back in the day. It probably had been since the dawn of time. It just wasn’t quite the thing you think it is today; very few natives ate it and it never really had a name.
How then did it ultimately come to be seen as the official chowder of the nation’s tiniest state?We may need to take a plow through the Annals of Chowder to get to that answer.
The “prehistory” of Clam Chowder is as murky as the soup itself. Prior to the 1700’s, possible progenitors have been postulated in the forms of either lumpy, ukewarm bowls of crud dredged from the English coast or delicate seafood glops dribbled along the French Méditerranée. Pasty fishy stews in the Canadian Maritimes have aslo been floated as ancestral stock as were some of the sticky tropical slug soups eaten from Barbados to the Bahamas. But were any really the genealogical proto-chowders of the greatest thing ever to stick to the inside of a styrofoam cup? Does it really matter? Has anybody ever felt so strongly as to have written more than a paragraph on the origins of chicken noodle soup?
Whatever.
The term chowder itself has an etymology similarly as crystalline as the food it describes. While generally agreed that chowder was a New England thing by the early 18th century, prior to that there were already words which sounded a lot like it. The Great Brits had their chowters and jowters. But those were people rather than soups. Chodier, chaudron, chaudière were also lined up as OG terms because they were French and everybody knows no Western food is an actual food without a beret & accordion in its bloodline. As it turned out, none of those were were actually food either. Referring to buckets and pots, as candidates they were as likely germinal as the term Chaucer (A clam eating male spreading satire and syphilis in the 14th Century, according to the Oxford Dictionary of stuff)
What we can say about chowder with any certainty is this: It took root as a regular thing in Massachusetts a wicked long time back. That made it even more American than apple pie (a naturalized citizen, with birth certificates all over Europe and Asia). Chowder, as we know it, began as a stew, greased by salt pork and thickened by hard tack (a type of hyper-dry, jaw busting cracker), which contained root vegetables and other things. These other things, though varied as they are now, eventually came to mean clams and milk. This configuration was considered settled law for about a century.
Then the Portuguese showed up in Southeastern New England. They came for the whale watches, to lay the foundations of the god-awful frozen scallop industry and to annihilate the pale peace of Puritan dinners.
Rhode Island in particular swelled with these fiercely Catholic, hot blooded and lactose intolerant new immigrants. Sudddenly surrounded by cauldrons of pallid chowder those Outer Iberians pounded their fists and bellowed, “Que porra é essa? No, no, no…” (Pardon my French)
After calming down a little, they swapped the cream for smooshed tomatoes and whammo: The birth of… Manhattan Clam Chowder**
Well, no. Obviously not Manhatan. Not at all. Because the Portuguese were not bringing forth their new, hot mollusk heresy in any borough of New York Town (or whatever it was called then) They were brewing it up in Rhode Island. New Bedford & Fall River too, of course, though anybody will tell you those twin cities are really just some RI parts of Massachusetts.
So, having resolved the origins of chowder’s main colors we arrive at some inescapable questions:
“Where the hell does Clear Clam Chowder fit into this wacko, clamshit history?”
“Doesn’t the above already suggest that Rhode Island Clam Chowder is red?”
“Doesn’t that mean Manhattan Island should really be part of Rhode Island?”
“How the fuck did white chowder pre-date clear chowder???”
Just the kinds of queries to make this fat & ugly story even longer. And probably worse. But there ain’t no turning back now.
For millennia, or more, there actually has been clear, clammy soups simmering in shoreline shacks around Rhode Island. Nonetheless, for most of beach dining history, it wasn’t something you would ever see on the menu. Like a head of iceberg lettuce pondering its potential as a salad, the clear stuff was merely “a chowder in waiting”. Waiting to become New England or Manhattan Clam Chowder, that is. The real Rhode Island essence in this story, you see, was not a pedigreed title or officially sanctioned soup; it was a shortcut. Basically a time/labor-saving hack allowing restaurants to cater to diners’ desire for both classes of chowder — without having to keep to big vats of the two at the ready.
Dig this scene: a couple of summer hires are working the takeout window at any given dockside chanty in southern RI. Some sandy, greasy family slouches up for some red chowder. One kid calls out the order, the other drops scoops of spaghetti sauce into styrofoam cups then ladles hot, clear clam soup into them. Badda bing — Manhattan chowders! Later on, a dude sporting a speedo, penny-loafers and requests New England chowder in a French accent. They’ll just squirt a little cream in that disposable bowl and hand our Canadian friend his soup.
It even made room for the health trends. A lady, perhaps overwhelming her two-piece just a tad, could ask, I’m watching fatty food — is your chowder really creamy? The teen in the window could look her straight in the eye and reply, Why no, ma’am. Not today! then tell his partner to only give her half the half & half.
That was the true Rhode Island part of it all. This profound contribution to the culinary preparation of quahogs wasn’t the silly, see-thru soup itself. It was the slick service gimmick it was made for. Smart AF Genius. In fact, some pennywise shanty owners later realized they could wring more profit by finally adding that base to the menu. “Clear” was penciled in under the Red & White choices and, soon enough, some slurpivores even started calling it South County Chowder. At that point it all made perfect sense.
Now… How did it make the jump from a shack hack to a region-wide trend among the foodie idiots? My guess has been that some of those summer cooks followed the culinary path on up to their own kitchens in Boston. Wracking their brains for a summer specials, the “pre-chowder” of their youth came to mind. In a flash of inspiration they may have said, Yeah! We could skip the roux & cream then top it with toasted focaccia and some fucking tarragon — We’ll call it Rhode Island Clam Chowder and slay some food costs!
Even that still made enough sense for me. Sounded like a swell homage to the home state. And prior to 2010, I rarely gave much thought. Even as it became more common to see in Providence restaurants it just felt as if the state was taking ownership. That was also a positive. Thus it went for a few years. I’d see twelve buck bowls of “RI Chowder” at a South End eatery or read an embellished Boston Globe piece about it and mutter, That’s fucking retarded before forgetting about it.
Then the articles on this “overlooked” or “forgotten” gem just kept coming. They were often penned by immigrant scum (Indianans, Pennsylvanians, etc) squatting in East Greenwich or by pompous food scribes on the national level. It was getting getting harder to swallow as they continually added splintered shells of historical — even present — inaccuracy. It was one of these which sent me into a fairly unnecessary rage:
“Clear clam chowder originated along the southern coast of Rhode Island, where it is a local delicacy much to be preferred over the creamier version of Boston to the north and the (to them) criminally tomato-hued style served in Manhattan to the south and west. Eating it recalls the feeling of pulling into Block Island after a long day at sea, scented with salt spray, and sliding into a clean bunk to sleep.”
Scribbled by Sam Sifton of The New York Times Cooking department, it was like a shot of Ipecac after a shitty meal. This RI Chowder fantasy had at last made the pages of the country’s most influential food section. Written in an authoritatively pithy style by a guy who couldn’t find Block Island among the polyps on the map in his ass. It was one load of crap too many
Regurgitated from a larger chowder article in 2014, Sifton put plenty of wrong into the paragraph. Firstly, clear chowder originated (as noted above) wherever the fuck somebody first boiled a clam. Matter of fact, I am going to attribute it to the Neanderthals whose culinary history, at Gorham & Vanguard Caves on the southern tip of Spain, has been explored by Clive Finlayson. Henceforth we shall call this “much to be preferred delicacy” Gibraltar Chowder, born about forty thousand years before Roger Williams gave the finger to Massachusetts.
Nextly, “delicacy” is not a word associated with anything from Rhode Island. Period. There are foods which are “much to be preferred”, like a New York System Wiener, but no one would ever mention them in such a pretentiously douchey manner. Sifty also mixed up his islands; confusing the historic vacation and Indian massacre site of Block Island with the historic fishing, whaling and Indian massacre site of Nantucket (A Massachusetts Island where the chowder is almost as white as the home owners). The longest day anybody on Block Island had at sea was the forty-five minutes on a ferry from Galilee — where they’d probably already slurped a cup of chowder (white) and a couple Seven & 7’s in the galley.
As for “criminally tomato-hued style”… Where the hell did he ever get that idea? Rhode Island, the Biggest Little State in the Union, The Ocean State, is also the “We Really Love Frickin’ Tomatoes in our Soup, Sam” State. Did the New York Times axe fact-checkers? For fuck’s sake, at least send an intern out for a little recon before writing such silly silliness; we’re just a couple hours up 95 after all. Percentage-wise, the state is probably just as Italian as NYC. With the aforementioned Portuguese and all the Greeks, Syrians & Lebanese and Latinos one will have little trouble finding the color Tomato Red. It’s all over everything in Rhode Island cuisine.
Waiting for the seethig to subside and wondering if this was all in my head, I launched a Facebook survey. Strictly for friends, legit or otherwise, who were from Rhode Island, it posed a single question: Who served your favorite Clear Chowder when you were growing up? I wanted to see if there were Rhode Islanders who had ever eaten enough of it, intentionally, to warrant its current name.
There weren’t many surprises in the answers. A lot of connections responded with restaurants who were serving it now. New places. Mainly the Matunuck Oyster Bar. A good handful of Boston transplants, with roots all over the country, also chimed in: about hot new places serving it in Newport or Providence or the Matunuck Oyster Bar.
I added a note reminding my Rhode crew that it was a question about experiences in their youths, most being currently as not young as me. Also, everyone else needed to sit this one out. Responses and Respondees didn’t change much, so it was tweaked again to Where was THE FIRST place you ever had Clear Chowder and WHEN was that? That should have at least created a chronological set of points indicating whether it really was a new concept or if I’d blacked out on pieces of my history. The latter has been known to happen…
There were two friends from home who provided clear (sorry) recollections. One had a Pepere*** who made it at home. Another’s Memere*** and Pepere owned a fish & chip shop a couple of blocks from Woonsocket High School. They had indeed served it long ago — a revelation! Otherwise, most answers still involved seafood restaurants which had opened in the last ten years. About a quarter of repondents, yet again, were from white chowder Massachusetts & white everything New Hampshire…
Some, and this was striking, had really tried to remember where their first bowl or cup had been. There were even cross discussions and corrections but very few could come up with anything — even the last time they’d eaten it. I feel their struggle derived in part from the food press. A new, though inaccurate, history of chowder impinging on their own memories. Like the assaults the whole spectrum of media does with everything else. Anyway, the key takeaways from the surveys are as follows:
- Few people fully read instructions, or anything else, on Social Media.
- I never realized Renee’s grandparents ran the Fish & Chip shop near my high school. I walked by it a thousand times but never went in. I loathed the stale oil smell and Woonsocket’s preferred frying style: battered fish crust which went soggy 30-seconds into dinner and droopy fries soft right outta the grease.
- French-Canadian-American pals ate the most clear clam stew. Mostly at home and cooked by their grandparents.
- That it was a Canuck thing wasn’t surprising. French-Canadian food is notably bland. Da cream is for da little bit coffee you put in. For them, tomatoes solely exist in the form of ketchup for the toutières (meat pies).
- It’s still nowhere close to a convincingly Rhode Island thing. Clear chowder is decidedly pan-cultural, especially among coastal working-class communities worldwide.
Having murdered this topic, what I wish you to have learned is this:
The One True Clam Chowder of Rhode Island is RED.
Thus, it’s time to add Rocky Point Red to the color palates. We take pride in creating originals as much as any geopolitical entity and there is nothing self-satisfactory about skipping steps in someone else’s recipe before writing your name on the pot. Imagine a bunch of warm egg yolks getting glorifies as “Vermont Hollandaise” or a “Filly” Cheesesteak at a vegan bakery in Middlebury. A town in Vermont.
Okay, that last example was a stretch. I just don’t mind taking every opportunity to say, Screw you, Vermont.
So if COVID killed your tongue, or you’re pushing ninety, go ahead and enjoy this low-impact, see-thru “delicacy”. There’s really nothing wrong with it. There just isn’t anything deeply Rhode Island about it. Call it Connecticut Chowder, as some actually do. That drab province could use some inofffensive PR.
In Conclusion: Almost all histories of any chowder variety are rife with horsehit. Not so much this one. Not too much, any way ; )
*I’m inclined to suggest a fourth major, permanent style — Rocky Point Chowder, delectable and distinct from the green pepper-oregano “minestrone with clams” from NYC.
**Food writers, of the kind currently swept up in this Clear/RI mythology, will often like to point out that red Manhattan style was probably brought to NYC by Portuguese seafood traders from Rhode Island. They’ll even mention that in the same piece on RI clear chowder, never noticing the incongruence or blind irony.
The Portuguese likely didn’t export anything to NYC from RI anyhow. With Italians, and its own population of Portuguese expats, tomatoes and clams in the same bowl was certainly already a thing down there.
***Pepere & Memere (PEP-ay and MEM-ay): Grandfather & Grandmother. Most common terms among Rhode Island’s French-Canadian population.
Notes
The General Make Up of the Common Modern Chowders
New England
Main Constituents: Clams, Potatoes, Onions, Milk or Cream or None
Color: White to Grayish
Thickener: Flour-Based Roux
Rhode Island Red/Rocky Point
Main Constituents: Clams, Potatoes, Onions, Tomatoes (crushed or pureed)
Color: Red
Thickener: Starchy Potatoes & Cheap, Pulverized Crackers
Manhattan
Main Constituents: Clams, Potatoes, Onions, Peppers, Carrots, Celery, Italian Herbs, Tomato Puree
Color: Red
Thickener: None
Rhode Island Clear
Main Constituents: Water
Color: N/A
Thickener: Imagination
