This may be more IMHOish than GQish, apologies if so.
Am I crazy to believe that New England clam chowder is NOT supposed to have bacon in it?
I’m an East Coaster who did a stint in Boston, now living in Los Angeles. Half the restaurants I’ll order it from make it with bacon. My friends mock me whenever I now ask waiters, “Do you make your clam chowder with bacon?” But inevitably I have the last laugh when s/he comes back saying, “Sorry, yeah, ours has bacon.”
What gives???
It is supposed to have salt pork in it, but that’s not the same thing as bacon. I would put it down to the general tendency of mid-priced restaurants to overseason everything these days. Just be glad they aren’t serving it with cajun blackened clams.
I always use bacon, and I make the best clam chowder in the world.
Is this just a West Coast thing? Wherever I’ve gone on the East Coast (and MA specifically) and asked, the servers have always been on MY side. 
The recipe from which mine is adapted called for salt pork, but that hind of smoke adds a whole nother dimension. Plus sometimes I make it with fresh geoducks rather than little clamlets. Don’t you wish you were me?
I just had a good bowl of Clam Chowder today - no bacon. However, I had a good bowl of Clam Chowder last Friday and it DID have bacon. So I guess I dunno.
“hind” ?!?!?
hint
Second best, Bub; I dig my own fresh razor clams from Cook Inlet. Nothing like a little elbow grease to add that special something. Plus bacon, of course.
How can you go wrong with bacon?