Whip up your favorite recipe for red or white chowder or just come and sample the delicious variety of chowder and fun at the Boardwalk. Clam chowder has its passionate devotees. I may not be quite so vehement, but I tend to agree with her. If I want tomatoes in my seafood soup, I'll order cioppino . The traditional technique of chowder making is to start with frying the onions in salt pork fat, and then adding the potatoes and the fish or clams, with enough water to cover.
Some authorities maintain that the best results are obtained by layering the ingredients.
New Englanders are willing to have an occasional carrot or a bit of celery added, but they deny that tomatoes belong in a self-respecting chowder. In fact, they insist that a chowder made with tomatoes is not a chowder, whereas New Yorkers for more than a century have made chowders with tomatoes. The dispute traces in part to the fact that New Englanders looked down on New Yorkers for many peculiarities and derelictions from New England standards beginning before the Revolution, and New Yorkers long returned the compliment. New Englanders, determined to avoid being contaminated by New York, either kept away from that supposedly sinful city or cut down their visits to the shortest possible time. I should add that my husband, who hails from Syracuse, New York, says that Upstaters have the same distaste for Manhattan that New Englanders do.