Talk:Chowder

chowder
This article does have a good many problems, beginning with the etymology-- "chaudière" -- big traditional French copper cooking vessel, seems a more correct etymology than "chaudron", as referenced on p. 124 of James Trager, The Food BookThe original chowder may have been a biscuit-thickened cod soup, cooked by Breton fisherman off the Canadian coast, but the biscuit or oyster cracker is now a garnish for a cream soup thickened with potatoes. Some very light blonde roux may be used to add a slight thickening if milk is used instead of cream. Salt pork, which was traditional primarily because it was the most common seasoning meat available before refrigeration came into vogue, has been replaced with bacon by most cooks. Cracker gruel might not be appealing to many people, and does not describe the current state of the art of chowder. I'll try to do some work on the article itself but some more discussion might seem appropriate. Novelismo (talk) 16:45, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, the etymology may be from chaudree which is a fish stew made with cream from the Poitou-Charentes region of France.

I learned chowder to be a thick soup based on milk and a stew as a thick soup based on water. I wonder how chowder has become corrupted into “…any of a variety of soups, enriched with salt pork fatback…”. There is obviously a pro-meat, anti-milk lobby at work here. Sorry, does anyone agree? My Flatley (talk) 05:09, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "Sorry, does anyone agree?" No. 01:46, 25 January 2018 (UTC)01:46, 25 January 2018 (UTC)~

Hey, looks like I'm not the only one who noticed the bad French/etymology/history. The Brittany stuff just doesn't make sense. In 1870 the pirate problem of Brittany had been eradicated for over a century. By the 1830s already a chaudière meant boiler/heater (or furnace in USA) in France. In France chaudière originally meant kettle/cauldron in the 1200-1700s, but seems an archaic thing to say by 1870, although perhaps in certain dialects. 'Ici on fair chaudière de ...' is an old expression for 'here one feasts of ...', but to say 'ici on fair la chaudière' would imply they make boilers. The stated translation 'here be chowder' is romantic, but fanciful and probably spurious. In Quebec, however, a chaudière meant/means a bucket, which seems a much more likely etymology than heater/boiler, or cauldron from some purported dialectal French. It would seem the original source material is simply wrong regarding the first paragraph on history.

Leo 86.83.56.115 (talk) 01:11, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

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Redirect
Why does "Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder," the title of a song, redirect to this article? Let's not be stupid. Henryrothschild (talk) 00:10, 18 May 2009 (UTC) PS ASIANS ROCK! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.150.13.163 (talk) 14:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Major Edit to the first paragraph
I was bold and changed the first paragraph around. It was really bad the way it was. Not saying its perfect now, but its much better. 68.188.25.170 (talk) 09:35, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I find the claim that the etymological origins are "obscure" is a bit of exaggeration. We might not know if chowder came from chauderee or chaudiere, but it is fairly certain that it became an English word between Newfoundland and New England. This article first indicates the case for chaudiere, and then compares it to a Creole word, chodier, that is only different because of dialect. But evidence strongly links the origin of chowder to Newfoundland, whence it arrived in New England from Breton French fisherman. Those sailors from Brittany, probably, as the article's next comment implies, already called their fish soup either "chauderee" or "chaudiere." So although the dish and the French names, if any, came from Brittany, the English word "chowder" would have been coined only in Newfoundland or New England, becoming associated with that area. There is no evidence for a connection to other regions besides there and France.Cdg1072 (talk) 19:37, 2 August 2015 (UTC)