Which type of clam chowder is best? The debate is alive and well
For decades, New England partisans – and don t forget New Yorkers – have debated the matter, bickering over specifications like cream, tomatoes, salt pork and roux.
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Dick Varano, owner of Billy’s Chowder House in Wells, with a bowl of the restaurant’s New England style clam chowder. The debate about which style chowder is best rages on.
Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
I still remember the worst clam chowder I’ve ever had. For years, I was a judge at Portland’s Great Chili and Chowder Challenge at the Holiday Inn by the Bay, an annual February fundraiser that, even during snowstorms, drew large crowds of chowder lovers eager to taste chowders of all kinds prepared by Portland chefs. We sampled a lot of wonderful steamy, creamy, classic New England chowders, but the one I remember best had the consistency of wallpaper paste. The “broth” was gluey and tasted more like the flour it had been thic