Como es Boston, todos pedimos- sin habernos puesto de acuerdo- el más típico y conocido de los platos bostonianos : el clam chowder . Su secreto: es la combinación de mar y tierra. Tocino y almejas se conjugan para dar una sopa espesa, blanca y rica que se sirve muy caliente acompañada de galletitas saladas.

Pero no faltaron las raciones de galletas (chocolate chip cookies en sus variantes más extraordinarias e inumaginables: con macadamia, con peanut butter,…) y Leonor manda la foto de su siempre clásico hot fudge…

Interesante fue también un vendedor de comida asiática que preparaba su pan en un horno redondo y «aplicaba» la masa a la pared del mismo. Una vez que se cocía, la despegaba de la pared y la sacaba, inflada , esponjosa y…tentadora.

Les copio una bella nota aparecida en el blog «Diario del Gourmet de Provincia…«(http://gourmetymerlin.blogspot.com/2008/11/clam-chowder.html) dedicado al clam chowder y a continuación la receta del tradicional Cliff House .

Agrego un comentario. Herman Melville (1819-1891),  el escritor norteamericano, dedicó en su  Moby Dick un capítulo  al chowder que se preparaba en el  Try Pots de Nantucket, Mass., y que solamente preparaba esta sopa a base de almejas o de bacalao:

«However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh, sweet friends! hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut up into little flakes; the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt. Our appetites being sharpened by the frosty voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favourite fishing food before him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent, we despatched it with great expedition: when leaning back a moment and bethinking me of Mrs. Hussey’s clam and cod announcement, I thought I would try a little experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered the word «cod» with great emphasis, and resumed my seat. In a few moments the savoury steam came forth again, but with a different flavor, and in good time a fine cod-chowder was placed before us . . . Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well deserved its name; for the pots there were always boiling chowders. Chowder for breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you began to look for fish-bones coming through your clothes. The area before the house was paved with clam-shells.»