Chowdah

You can't visit New England without trying some of the local clam chowder, and unlike a lot of dishes commonly served in restaurants but foreign to home dinner tables, New Englanders actually do eat a lot of the stuff. Today's clam chowder -- New England, or Boston clam chowder, that is -- is a thick, creamy almost stew-like soup with big chunks of clam in it, and some dry soup crackers on the side to crunch up and add in.

"Manhattan clam chowder" is essentially the same thing but with a tomato base. Irate Bostonians, wedded to tradition, apparently denounced this variation on a classic as "Manhattan" (Read: "Made by dirty, rotten stinkin' foreigners like New Yorkers"), though Manhattan clam chowder is as New England bred and born as, well, Dunkin Donuts. They eat lots of this kind too, but you have to ask special for it in restaurants. If you ask for "clam chowder," you can expect only one kind. Asking for Manhattan style will get you a dirty look, but you'll see the waitress eating some on her break, too. Don't take it personally.

Truth is, I'm not much of a seafood lover and clam chowder is basically fish soup, just with a lot of flour and crackers to kill the taste a bit. However, crafty New Englanders have come up with some other variations on the theme to keep non-fish eaters like myself from starving to death. One of my favorites is corn chowder; this is a wonderful winter dish with a thick corn(meal?)-base but bustling with potatoes and sausage chunks as well. Now we're talking. A friend in Rhode Island makes some killer corn chowder. So whatever your tastes, there's a chowdah out there for you.