Clam Chowder

Sauced · Oct 8, 2026 · 1h 9m

New England claims Clam Chowder as its own, but the dish carries a distinctly French accent. Its name comes from the chaudière, the cooking pot Breton fishermen brought across the Atlantic. Centuries later, the man who set the modern standard made the same trip.

We read the oldest printed recipe in full, a 1751 poem that calls for a bottle of red wine, and sit down to Melville's bowl on Nantucket. From there it's the long-running feud between New England and Manhattan, including the year a Maine lawmaker tried to outlaw tomatoes in chowder, plus the era when clam shells could cover Harvard…