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By Root 941 0

an individual view of the most important ingredients. For me it is the bay leaf, which, with the milk of a chowder, produces the most deliciously fresh-tasting background for cod or shellfish.

COD AND SHELLFISH CHOWDER

A most satisfying dish when everyone is tired at the end of the day. Don’t despise the frozen packs of cod or haddock on sale in the grocery, they do nicely for chowders; so do frozen scallops or prawns if clams and fresh mussels aren’t available.

Serves 6

125 g (4 oz) salt belly of pork or streaky bacon, diced

175–250 g (6–8 oz) chopped onion

1 tablespoon lard or butter

1 heaped tablespoon plain flour

450 ml (15 fl oz) water or fish stock

450 ml (15 fl oz) milk

bouquet garni, including a bay leaf

6 medium potatoes, diced

salt, mace, freshly ground pepper, cayenne

750 g (1½ lb) cod or other firm whitefish

150 ml (5 fl oz) cream

at least 125 g (4 oz) shelled mussels, clams, scallops, etc.

parsley and chives for garnish

Brown pork (or bacon) and onion lightly in the fat. Stir in the flour and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the water or fish stock gradually, then the milk, bouquet, and potatoes. Season well with salt, mace and peppers.

When the potatoes are almost cooked, put in the cod, cut into rough 2½-cm (i-inch) pieces. After 5 minutes, stir in the cream and shellfish (and any liquor from opening mussels, etc). When the soup returns to the boil remove from the heat. Remember that the cod continues to cook in the heat of the chowder as it comes to table, and should not be overcooked – neither should the shellfish. Correct the seasoning and sprinkle with parsley and chives. Hot buttered toast or hot crackers usually accompany a chowder: ship’s biscuits if you can get them.

NOTE Curry powder can be added with the flour. Final garnishes can include sweet red pepper or sweetcorn. Every town on the East Coast has its own small variations.

LA CHAUDRÉE

Here is another ‘chowder’, this time from La Rochelle, but without the seaman’s flavouring of salt pork. The liquid should be white wine (ideally from the Île d’Oléron or the Île de Ré, islands off the southwest coast of France); and the chaudron, or cauldron in which the soup is made, should be buried in a fire of prunings from the island vines, which are fertilized with seaweed. Even if you haven’t the possibility of such an aromatic smoke as flavouring, or the right wind Chaudrée is an excellent dish. This recipe comes from Recettes des Provinces de France, chosen by Curnonsky.

Serves 6

12 onions, quartered

1 clove garlic

large bouquet garni

salt, peppercorns

3 cloves

125 g (4 oz) butter

whole potatoes (optional)

2 kg (4 lb) assorted fish, small sole, plaice, eel

1 litre (1¾ pt) white wine or half wine half water

In a large pot arrange the onions, garlic and bouquet. Season, with not too much salt; add about 8 peppercorns and the cloves; dot with butter. Next, if you like, put in the potatoes, well-scrubbed but not peeled – one per person, or more if they are small; they turn the soup into a meal, a filling one, on American chowder lines. Arrange the cleaned fish on top – eel should be cut into chunks. Cover with wine, or wine and water; bring to the boil and simmer for half an hour or more. Remove the fish to a warm plate as it is cooked, do the same with the potatoes. Reduce the liquid to half by boiling down, and correct the seasoning. Restore fish and potatoes to the pot and serve immediately.

THREE COTRIADES

The fish soup of Brittany; or, if you like, the fish supper, because the liquid is drunk first, as soup, with the fish and potatoes as a main course to follow. The cooking method for the first two recipes is close to that of American chowder. All three come from Simone Morand’s Gastronomie Bretonne. The point of variation between the three, and between so many other fish soups, lies in the different resources of the places where they are made. For this reason, mackerel is included – an unusual creature in most fish