Clam chowder is more warm and cozy than hot and spicy.
Traditionally, chowder isn't a highly-spiced soup. Basically, it's milk and seafood, with clams being the most popular seafood ingredient. Other chowders can be made from shrimp and oysters, oyster bisque being the simplest. Chowder is from the French word "chaudiere," which was the word for a large and heavy kettle used to make soups and stews.
Bay Leaf
Sweet bay is a leaf from a Mediterranean evergreen tree that grows 40 to 60 feet tall. It has a lovely resinous smell and can be bought either dried or fresh. These were the leaves that crowned the heads of victorious warriors and athletes in ancient Greece and Rome. Now, the leaf gives flavor and aroma not only to chowder but to stews, roasts, poultry, gravies, and sauces. A bay leaf will save chowder from a milky blandness. Usually, the leaf is removed and discarded before the meal is eaten.
Parsley
Parsley is a common herb in many home gardens, and it can be bought fresh in most supermarkets. It's a short-lived perennial with curly or flat compound leaves -- flat leaf parsley has more flavor than the curly variety. Fresh parsley can be used as a garnish, or as seasoning in chowder, sauces, egg fish, shellfish and meat dishes, but shouldn't be eaten in great quantities, as it can be toxic. It gives to chowder a bright, "green" taste.
Thyme
Garden thyme is popular and easy to grow. It's native to southern Europe, from Spain to Italy, and is a perennial bushy herb with wiry stems and tiny leaves. In ancient Rome and Greece, thyme was burned as incense and strewn over floors and graves. Like parsley, it can be used, fresh or dried, in just about everything from chowder to fish, cheese, pickles, meat, and baked goods. Lemon thyme is also good in pork stuffing. Thyme imparts a hint of spicy warmth to chowder.
White Pepper
White pepper comes from the Piper nigrum vine as a peppercorn or a berry. To get their white color, the berries are soaked for a week and their husks rubbed off before they're dried. White pepper is good in chowder because it imparts the flavor of pepper without the black specks from black pepper.
Black Pepper
Black pepper is the berries from the vine Piper nigrum that come after the spikes of small white flowers are fertilized. The peppercorns are picked just before they ripen, then dried in the sun till they turn black. Black pepper gives chowder just enough of a bite to keep it from blandness.
Tags: before they, gives chowder, parsley used, Piper nigrum