sb. Also 8 chouder. [App. of French origin, from chaudière pot. In the fishing villages of Brittany (according to a writer in N. & Q., 4 Ser. VII. 85) faire la chaudière means to supply a cauldron in which is cooked a mess of fish and biscuit with some savory condiments, a hodge-podge contributed by the fishermen themselves, each of whom in return receives his share of the prepared dish. The Breton fishermen probably carried the custom to Newfoundland, long famous for its chowder, whence it has spread to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and New England.
Another writer in N. & Q. (1870), 4 Ser. V. 261, says ‘I have frequently heard some of the old inhabitants [of Newfoundland] speak of Commodore John Elliot’s chowder pic-nic in 1786, which was given in honour of H. R. H. Prince William Henry [William IV.] in command of H. M. S. Pegasus upon the Newfoundland station.’]
1. In Newfoundland, New England, etc.: A dish made of fresh fish (esp. cod) or clams, stewed with slices of pork or bacon, onions and biscuit. ‘Cider and champagne are sometimes added’ (Bartlett).
1762. Smollett, L. Greaves, xvii. (D.). My head sings and simmers like a pot of chowder.
1798. Philad. Weekly Mag., 18 Aug. (in Mag. Amer. Hist., March 1888, 258). A large pot of victuals was prepared. They called it Chouder. Chouder may be made of any good fish, but the ingredients of our mess were as follows:—1, fat pork; 2, flounders; 3, onions; 4, codfish; 5, biscuit.
1809. Naval Chron., XXI. 22. Chowder … is made in the following manner: a fish … skinned, cut up … and put into a kettle, under which is laid some rashers of salt pork or beef, and some broken pieces of biscuit; then the whole is … covered with water, and boiled about ten minutes.
1851. Hawthorne, Ho. Sev. Gables, i. 15. A cod-fish, of sixty pounds, caught in the bay, had been dissolved into the rich liquid of a chowder.
1859. Bushnell, Life, xx. 430. To tell her how to make a chowder … a layer of fish, then one of pilot-bread, and potatoes and onions; another of fish; a little dash of lard; milk; pepper and salt; a dish for a prince.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Chowder, the principal food in the Newfoundland bankers, or stationary trading vessels.
1882. Standard, 26 Sept., 2/1. A picnic … would be incomplete without … a clam chowder, which … may … be considered one of the New England national dishes.
1884. Lit. World (Boston, U.S.), 15 Nov., 391/3. Soups … are divisible into four groups: viz. clear, thick, purées or bisques, and chowders.
2. Chowder beer, ‘a liquor made by boiling the black spruce in water and mixing molasses with the decoction’ (Webster, 1828).
Hence Chowder v., to make a chowder.
1828. in Webster.
Chowder, chowter, dial. var. of jowder, JOWTER, a fish-hawker.
