A SOUP WITH A STORY

For centuries, kitchens in Nova Scotia have been churning out chowder, a creamy soup that lends the Maritime province a proudly preserved culinary identity. Discover its myriad variations along the Chowder Trail, which weaves through this rugged corner of Atlantic Canada

- JESSICA VINCENT

“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.