Instructions: Chowder has a diverse history in North America, provoking strong feelings and often contradictory claims.

About the only certainty is that different kinds of fish stews exist in almost every sea-bound country in the world, and, inevitably, some versions ended up crossing the Atlantic.

In his sea classic, "Moby-Dick" (1851), Herman Melville writes of the Try Pots, a chowder house in Nantucket, Mass., which served cod or clam chowder. He describes the menu as "chowder for breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you began to look for fish-bones coming through your clothes."
By the end of the 19 th century, certain New England regions became known for their own variations of chowder. Cream might be used in one version, lobster in another and no potatoes elsewhere. Most chowders were by then a creamy white soup loaded with chunks of fish or clams, crackers for thickening, and butter.

If you live in New England, you probably think that chowder with tomatoes, called "Manhattan style," is an abomination. If, on the other hand, you come from New York, with its large Italian population, or Rhode Island, with its Portuguese fishing community, tomatoes and seafood in chowder are a natural.

Fanny Farmers classic 1918 edition of her "Boston Cooking School Cook Book" lists recipes for three chowders: Her fish chowder is New England style, made with cod or haddock, salt pork, potatoes, milk, butter and common crackers for thickening.

Her Connecticut chowder seems to be yet another version of so-called Manhattan-style clam chowder, made with cod or haddock, potatoes and butter, with stewed and strained tomatoes in place of the milk.

Her corn chowder contains potatoes, milk, salt pork and butter, along with corn and onion.

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