My mother used to use canned clams and canned milk and a stick of butter. She used canned potatoes and white chopped onions. She never used bacon. She never cheapened the chowder with flour, for thickness. I eat my crackers on the side with chowder, but my older brother eats his crackers the way my parents ate theirs.
Oyster crackers are for people from New Hampshire .
Mum made a lot of stuff. Lasagna it took two people to lift out of the oven. But for me her clam chowder remains her signature dish. Buttery as it slid across the tongue, the salt taste of sea all the way down your throat, the warmth and fullness in the belly, the drip on the chin that cooled uncannily quick. I know she was proud of her chowder.