Customer Reviews

50 Chowders: One Pot Meals - Clam, Corn, & Beyond

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I first have to let you know my own bias(es): I read cookbooks like some folks read novels, but when it "comes down to it" what I truly appreciate is a book with plenty of recipes that sound delicious, and that I can actually prepare at home.

OK - here's another bias - I love chowders. I love eating them, cooking, smelling them, etc.

This is a good scholarly book on chowders. It begins with a history of chowders in Northeastern America from 1700 up to 2000 when the author tells us "50 CHOWDERS by Jasper White, the first hardcover book of contemporary chowders, is published".

The author doesn't hide his biases: Jasper White is a proud Northeastern American and believes chowders have been and remain an integral part of the Northeast American (this includes Canada) diet and culture since the 1700's.

This is a book to please lots of people because the recipes sound yummy and do-able for the most part. Most focus on clams, shellfish and fish in general. There are some veg. chowders as well - leaning heavily toward corn. There are also recipes for accompaniments - breads, fritters - not many,though - also leaning mostly toward corn. (OK by me, I love corn).

There's a lot of information here, which I appreciate. This isn't an open a can of this and that, instead it's very thoughtfully put together. As with most worthwhile cookbooks, Jasper White focuses on the importance of the very best ingredients to achieve the very best product(s). You can learn about various types of clams, shellfish, fish, broths, with some interesting history thrown in...

I like it.

This is a great collection of recipes for this time of year. I frankly love one-dish meals of any type, particularly soups and stews. White provided me with great alternatives to my basic autumn fare--beef and lamb stews, lentil and vegetable soups. If you think "chowder" only applies to clams and corn, this book will open your eyes.

My favorite recipe is the one for Pacific Northwest Salmon Chowder. As West Coast residents, my husband and I are big fans of salmon, but I'd never dreamed of putting it in soup! The combination of pearl onions, potatoes, salmon and peas in this dish is a true winner.

Many traditional and unusual clam chowder recipes are included, as well as quite a few for vegetarians. My favorite section of the book, however, is Chapter 2: Chowder Ingredients. It gives a thorough explanation of the common chowder components, and I was surprised to learn so much about various fish and different types of potatoes. As Jasper White explains, the only ingredient found in every chowder in this book is onions--what a surprise!

This book would make a great gift for the cook on your holiday gift list. (My only reason for not giving it a "5" is that I like more photographs in my cookbooks--there are only eight.)

Jasper White's book,-50 Chowders- has concise, easy to follow instructions with delicious tasting chowders. He not only tells you what to do in his recipes but he also tells you why you are doing it. This is rare to find in a modern cookbook. It's something you normally only find in an instructional video. It gives you the understanding of where you are heading instead of blindly following instructions. The chowders are wonderful and satisfying but the best thing about the book to me is his incredible love and reverence for the history of the recipes and the Shakers who handed them down. Reading his descriptions of the Shaker's respect for their food and cooking actually brought tears to my eyes. Not to play down the results of his chowder recipes...every member of my family loves them, even my 5 year old! They're the best I've ever tasted. Bravo Jasper! Your love produced a masterpiece!

I'm new to chowders and cooking in general but I found this book extremely useful and easy. The corn chowder was my absolute favorite. It was incredible. I made it for a group of people and everyone thinks I'm such a great cook now. They don't realize how it easy it was! Although I usually would agree that a cook book needs more photos, the recipes are so easy and explained beautifully that you don't need them. A great book for those who love to cook but may be just starting out.

This is a book for those who love to understand what it is that makes the food they prepare so delicious. Jasper White writes with infectious enthusiasm about the history of chowder, and explains the roles of the component ingredients in each exceptional recipe. I just prepared his Layered Fish Chowder, and cannot describe the satisfaction I found in the rich aromas of cooking and the incredibly balanced flavor and texture of the dish. My family was delighted with the meal, and I can't wait to prepare more of these elegant but simple recipes. I cannot praise this book highly enough, not only for the recipes, but for informative, well-written text. I am a collector of cookbooks, particularly on the subject of one-pot meals, and this is by far the best I have found to date. Those readers familiar with John Thorne will recognize White's Thorne-like connection to and love for his work.

'50 Chowders' by noted New England chef and writer, Jasper White may not be among my top five favorite cookbooks, but it is certainly on my list of 25 cookbooks which must be on a shelf in my kitchen. My experience with making the recipes in this book is so good, I will waive any complaint about getting only 50 chowder recipes for a list price of $30, at least twice the cost per recipe from a `name' cookbook author.

The charm of this book extends far beyond its recipes, as it inherits an interest for the reader from its subject. Chowders easily rank as one of the great New World dishes, along with barbecue, chili and ceviche. As the author points out at the beginning of the book, a chowder is not a soup, even though it shares many similarities to some famous soups such as minestrones and bouillabaisse in being thick and being based on seafood. But, a chowder is neither a soup nor a stew, yet an exact definition is almost impossible. The meaning of `chowder', like the meaning of the word `games' is so slippery that almost every definition you can imagine may slip through your hands with a valid counterexample. This is where the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein introduced the notion of family resemblance. Each chowder example shares several similarities to a related soup which is also a chowder, but it also exhibits differences from some chowders as well as differences from non-chowder soups and stews.

Virtually the only essential ingredient seems to me to be salt pork. The next most important ingredient is a starch from potato, biscuit, or corn. The third most definitive ingredient is probably a seafood (shell or fin) protein. Even this third element is not essential, as this book contains some chowders where the protein critter source has never willingly stuck its feet or wing into water.

The first chapter in this book provides a really excellent set of recipes for nine (9) different stocks, including six (6) for fish stocks. These nine are in addition to the fifty chowder recipes proper and include a strong fish stock, a traditional fish stock, clam and mussel broths, lobster stock, crab stock, chicken stock, chicken broth, and beef stock or broth. The only thing I miss here is a corn broth, although White's recipes do use cleaned corncobs to add corny flavor to chicken stocks used in the corn chowders.

The last chapter provides ten (10) recipes for `Chowder Companions', dishes commonly eaten with chowder. The only thing I would expect on this list that I miss is a recipe for crackers. But, we get lots of good quickbread recipes for garlic toast, buttermilk biscuits, cheddar cheese biscuits, Parker House rolls, anadama bread, corn bread, corn sticks, corn fritters, clam fritters, and salt cod fritters. White is true to his New England roots, as his biscuit recipe comes from Vermont native, Christopher Kimball rather than from a cook with a Southern accent such as Shirley Corriher or Edna Lewis. These ten recipes also do not count toward the fifty chowder recipes.

Between these two `extras' there are four chapters with the fifty recipes for fish, clam, other shellfish, and `farmhouse' chowders. The scant fifty recipes suddenly becomes more like 150 when we realize that each chowder recipe is augmented with one or more variations to the basic recipe. And, each basic recipe is presented in such a way that if one central ingredient is not available, another can be substituted with virtually no loss of quality. In the recipe for New England Fish Chowder, for example, the author points out that either cod or haddock will do well as the primary fishy protein, with haddock being just a little firmer and less likely to flake, giving larger chunks of fish in the finished soup.

I personally find the instructions for these recipes to be about as carefully written as you can imagine. This means that the procedures seem a bit long, but they are not difficult. Recall that chowders were created to be made on fishing boats with the most basic ingredients you can possibly imagine, by cooks which never saw the inside of a cooking school, long before the birth of either August Escoffier or even Antonin Careme. These were ship's cooks who needed homespun techniques to coax a good taste out of extremely simple ingredients. But, these recipes are not historical reconstructions as you may find in the writings of White's great friend and fellow chowder scholar, John Thorne. I sense that almost all of these recipes started as someone's traditional meal, but chef White has gilded each one to take advantage of fresh herbs and vegetables. And yet, I can find practically no other ingredient beyond the basic salt pork, potatoes, dairy product, basic protein, and basic vegetables such as leeks, corn, tomatoes, and celery. The book also goes out of its way to spell out in advance all he special cooking tools you will need to make each main recipe.

The very best thing I can say about the book as a whole is that it is equally pleasant to simply read it as it is to cook from it and taste it's excellent dishes.

Very highly recommended.

You are reading this review because you are interested in making chowder and be advised that this is THE book on chowder. Everything you need to know and so much more is contained with the pages. Pick it up, read it and follow Jasper White's advise and you will be making great chowders in no time at all. The Lobster and Corn Chowder recipe is worth the price of the book.

Enjoy!

Growing up in the Northeast and living in Maine for the last 17 years, I have a distinct love of 'chowdah'. There is nothing better than a good fish or clam chowder. That being said...I'll leave the quahogs (they're like chewing on rubber..littleneck clams are better)to the Massachusetts and Rhode Island folks and as for that 'red stuff', NOT on my table!

Jasper White has written a wonderful tribute to that delicacy we know as chowder. You don't have to live on the ocean to make it and you certainly don't have to use seafood either. When I lived in Vermont, I used to make a killer Corn Chowder that was rich and tasty. I even got my mother to try it (She had a particular aversion to what she called 'white sauce' soup). It became a traditional Christmas Eve fare and Mom was the cook.

That aside, this book is replete with absolutely fabulous recipes! Imagine a Mushroom and Leek Chowder or Farmer's Chicken Chowder. Mr. White gives you the basics of building a chowder. The recipes are great but you are free to experiment with ingredients and spices that match your culinary tastes. Chowder is decidely a comfort food and this is the definitive book on this traditional American staple.

Excellent chowder history, discussions of ingredients and recipes. This book is as good a read as it is a cookbook. Don't be afraid that the author's New England heritage will make all the chowders fish; there is a good-sized chapter of "farmhouse chowders" that features chowders of corn, chicken, mushrooms, bean, potatoes, turkey or pheasant. I had to try the "cider and bean chowder" and it is wonderful. I have also enjoyed the recipes for biscuits, rolls, etc. in the chapter of "chowder companions."

This is a book that will be enjoyed by both experienced and novice cooks, as the recipes are well written and please the palate.

The only caveat is to those with dietary restrictions or those (like me) who do not like higher fat foods. I don't like recipes that use lots of heavy cream, but I have found that the making the usual substitutions (milk plus a little flour) gives me the same wonderful chowders but without the extra fat calories.

I've just purchased my 6th copy of this book, one of my most favorite cookbooks ever - my own original copy is years old, stained, and dog-eared; I've given 4 as Christmas presents; and I just gave one as a wedding gift along with a Le Creuset French oven. Once you learn the chowder basics, so well described by Jasper, you can easily make any of the wonderful variations or make up your own depending on what looks great at the market, what you have on hand, and what's growing in the garden. There are few meals as soul-satisfying as a bowl of chowder. With these recipes, you can make a sophisticated meal for guests, or pull a profound pantry supper out of your hat on a snowy night. Some of my favorite recipes so far include "New England Fish Chowder" - a staple in our house (I always try to add a piece of smoked haddock to whatever fish I am using, and I recommend pepper bacon if you can find it); "Pacific Northwest Salmon Chowder" is both light and pretty enough for a summer get-together; "Oyster Chowder with Leeks" is just simply terrific; "Corn Chowder" is summer in a bowl; and "Lightly Curried Mussel Chowder" is different, easy, fun to make, and generates lots of nummy noises and satisfied groaning. The recipes are accurate, easily modified, and accompanied by interesting background information, chowder history, and lore. This is the best kind of cookbook, in my humble opinion - you start with a simple regional and historical focus - New England seafood chowder - and end with a whole new technique solidly in your cooking repetoire. Buy it and try it - you will feel and be part of a long and proud tradition when you make and serve this food!