Chowder

A recipe formulated and published in 1894 by Charles Ranhofer, a famous chef of Delmonico's restaurant, was called "Chowder de Lucines" and had ingredients of pork, clams, potato (sliced to a seven sixteenths-inch size), onion, parsley, tomato, crackers garnished by thyme, salt and pepper.

Others in the same family, totally different from the New England clam chowder, are: "Fulton Market style", introduced in 1904 and made from clams, tomatoes, allspice, cloves, red pepper, and Worcester sauce; a "Vegetable Clam Chowder" introduced in 1929 and made of clams, chopped onions, diced carrots, stewed tomatoes, and thyme; "Coney Island Clam Chowder"; "New York Clam Chowder"; and "Manhattan Clam Chowder", a late entry after 1930.

Chowder was brought to North America with immigrants from England and France and seafarers more than 250 years ago.

An early description of chowder is found in the journal kept by the young botanist Joseph Banks, who visited English and French Labrador fisheries in 1766.

Chowder was not utterly unfamiliar in England at the time, as in Sir Launcelot Greaves (1762) Tobias Smollett has one character state, "My head sings and simmers like a pot of chowder".

In 1890, in the magazine American Notes and Queries, it was said that the dish was of French origin.