Santa Barbara Chowder Fest

History of Chowder – 1796

The first cookbook authored by an American was Amelia Simmons’s American Cookery or The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry and Vegetables and The Best Modes of Making Pastes, Puffs, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards and Preserves, and All Kinds of Cakes, from Imperial Plumb to Plain Cake, Adapted at This Country and All Grades of Life, published in 1796. Her first edition, published in the same year, did not include any soups. The second edition, published in 1800, was the first American cookbook to give a chowder recipe:

Chouder –

(http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/ChowderHistory.htm)

Take a bass weighing four pounds, boil half an hour; take six slices raw salt pork, fry them till the lard is nearly extracted, one dozen crackers soaked in cold water five minutes; put the bass into the lard, also the pieces of pork and crackers, cover close, and fry for 20 minutes; serve with potatoes, pickles, apple-sauce or mangoes; garnish with green parsley.”