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Corn and Potato Chowder
1 medium sized onion, sliced 1 tablespoon shortening 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon paprika 1/2 can corn 1 cup boiling water 2 large diced potatoes 1 pt. milk Brown the onion in the shortening, add seasoning, corn, boiling water and potato and cook until the potato is soft. Add the milk and bring to the boiling point. Serves six.
A plain milk chowder built to be cooked over a camp fire with pantry tins. It works on a stove with almost no change, but two of the quantities need translating.
- "Half a can" of cornThe standard vegetable tin of the period was the No. 2 can, about 20 fluid ounces, so half is roughly 1 to 1 1/4 cups of drained kernels. A modern 15-oz can, drained, gives about 1 1/2 cups; use two-thirds of one, or a cup of frozen kernels.
- ShorteningIn recipes of this period "shortening" may mean lard, vegetable shortening or any solid fat; either way it keeps without refrigeration. Butter or bacon fat browns the onion better and suits a chowder; use a tablespoon of either.
- Do not let the milk boil"Bring to the boiling point" means to the edge and no further. A pint of milk over direct heat with starchy potato in it scorches on the bottom in seconds and can curdle. Heat gently, stirring, and pull it off as soon as steam rises and the surface trembles.
- Potato size and timingTwo large potatoes diced small will soften in 12 to 15 minutes in a cup of water; cut them no larger than 1/2 inch or the water will boil away first. Add a splash more water if the pan goes dry before they yield to a fork.
- Seasoning is lightA quarter teaspoon of salt for a pint of milk and two potatoes is barely a seasoning by current taste. Salt again after the milk goes in, when you can judge it properly.
- Yield"Serves six" assumes a cup apiece alongside other camp food. As a supper on its own it feeds three or four; doubling the milk and corn scales cleanly.
Chowder in American cooking descends from the fisherman's pot of the North Atlantic coast, where salt pork, ship's biscuit and whatever the boat had landed were layered into a kettle; the name is generally traced to the French chaudière, the cauldron itself. By the time corn and potato versions like this one were printed, chowder had migrated inland and lost both the fish and the pork, keeping only the structure of fat, aromatics, starch and milk. Its place in an outdoor and camping section is no accident: every component except the milk travels in a tin or a sack, the whole thing cooks in one pot, and it needs nothing sharper than a knife to prepare.