Following the Chowder Trail in Nova Scotia

11.10.2023 - 13:02 / nationalgeographic.com / Nova Scotia

“Chowder has always been here,” says Emily Haynes. “It isn’t just a dish for Nova Scotians — it’s who we are.” The executive director of Taste of Nova Scotia, an association that promotes businesses that champion local ingredients, Emily is taking me for a blustery coastal stroll along the Bay of Fundy. “Chowder was shipboard food,” she says as we pass fishing boats stranded on the bay’s muddy bottom; the Atlantic inlet between the Canadian Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick is home to the world’s highest tides. “Fishermen would cook salt cod or fresh catch with salt pork in hot water, then ship’s biscuits were added as a thickener. It was a tasty meal that could feed a whole ship from one pot.”

It’s thought Nova Scotia’s relationship with chowder began more than 400 years ago, when French colonisers landed on the eastern coast of Canada in the early 17th Century, followed by English, Scottish, Irish and New England settlers. While the first known chowder recipe was printed in Boston in 1751, the Oxford English Dictionary says chowder may likely derive from the French word chaudière, referring to an iron pot used by French fishermen to make fish soup. There are other theories, too: in Serious Pig: An American Cook in Search of His Roots, author John Thorne says chowder could stem from jowter, which is an old Cornish slang word for fish peddler or hawker.

As European colonisers spread across the North American continent, chowder made its way through Canada’s Atlantic provinces and down the East Coast of the US, where regional adaptations of the dish began to appear in the 17th and 18th centuries. From Newfoundland in Canada to Rhode Island in the US, today hundreds of chowder variations exist along North America’s Atlantic coast, including those made with corn, barley or meat, and seafood chowders containing anything from scallops and oysters to haddock and salmon. 

“Nova Scotian chowder isn’t like New England or Manhattan chowder,” says Emily, referring to two recipes from the East Coast made exclusively with clams. “What’s wonderful about our chowder is that there’s no rule book, which means no two chowders in Nova Scotia are the same.”

In 2011, Taste of Nova Scotia launched Canada’s first Chowder Trail, a network of province-wide restaurants serving the best examples of the dish. To be included on the trail, restaurants must make their chowder fresh and only use Nova Scotian seafood. The rest, however, including what seafood, dairy, vegetables and herbs are used in the soup, is up to the chef.

“We wanted to create a food trail that tells the story of all Nova Scotians,” says Emily. “It had to be chowder. Whether you’re from Cape Breton or Halifax, chowder is what connects all of us