Chowder is a type of soup or stew often prepared with milk or cream and thickened with broken crackers, crushed ship biscuit, or a roux. Variations of chowder can be seafood or vegetable. Crackers such as oyster crackers or saltines may accompany chowders as a side item, and cracker pieces may be dropped atop the dish. New England clam chowder is typically made with chopped clams and diced potatoes, in a mixed cream and milk base, often with a small amount of butter. Other common chowders include seafood chowder, which includes fish, clams, and many other types of shellfish; corn chowder, which uses corn instead of clams; a wide variety of fish chowders; and potato chowder, which is often made with cheese. Fish chowder, corn chowder, and clam chowder are especially popular in the North American regions of New England and Atlantic Canada.
Some people include Manhattan clam chowder as a type of chowder, but since it has no milk or cream and is tomato-based, it is actually more like a vegetable soup with clams.
The origin of the term chowder is obscure. One possible source is the French word chaudron, the French word for cauldron, the type of cooking or heating stove on which the first chowders were probably cooked.Chodier was also a name for a cooking pot in the Creole language of the French Caribbean islands: Crab pas mache, li pas gras; li mache touop, et li tomber nans chodier ("if a crab don't walk, he don't get fat, if he walks too much, he falls into a cooking pot"). Another possible source of the word "chowder" could be the French dish called chaudrée (sometimes spelled chauderée), which is a type of thick fish soup from the coastal regions of Charente-Maritime and Vendée.
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