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Clam and Corn Chowder
1 pint small clams, hard parts removed 1 pint canned corn 1 pint water 1 teaspoon Karo, Blue Label 1 onion, minced 2 tablespoons Mazola 1 pint sliced potatoes 1 quart milk 2 tablespoons Argo or Kings. ford's Cornstarch Salt and pepper to taste Fry the onions till yellowed, in the Mazola, add the Karo, water and potatoes and simmer fifteen minutes. Pour in the milk, add the corn and when boiling, the clams chopped, or whole, if very small clams are used. Thicken with the corn starch blended with an equal amount of cold water, bring to boiling point, season to taste and serve with crisped crackers.
A branded chowder from a corn-products promotional book, which explains the corn oil, corn syrup and cornstarch all doing duty in one pot. It works, but the clams need watching.
- The hinge: the clams go in lastChopped clams need no more than a minute or two in the hot milk; whole small ones about the same. The recipe's order is deliberate, and anything longer turns them to erasers.
- Mazola, Karo, ArgoMazola is corn oil, and any neutral oil or 2 tablespoons of butter works. Karo Blue Label was one of the lighter syrups in the Karo range; a teaspoon of light corn syrup or plain sugar is all that is wanted, presumably to round out the canned corn.
- "Hard parts removed"With hard-shell clams that means trimming the tough black-tipped siphon and the stomach mass, leaving the belly and the soft body. Shucked chopped clams sold in tubs today are already cleaned; drain them and save the liquor.
- Clam liquorThe recipe uses a pint of plain water, but the liquor from shucking is the best part of the flavor. Strain it through a cloth to catch grit and count it as part of that pint.
- Canned corn quantitiesA pint is 16 fluid ounces, two cups. A modern 15-ounce can, liquid included, falls a little short of that; drained it gives appreciably less, so two cans or a topped-up cup measure is closer. Frozen corn substitutes directly.
- Potatoes and liquidA pint of water barely covers a pint of sliced potatoes, so use a heavy pan, keep the heat low and stir. Fifteen minutes is right for slices about a quarter-inch thick.
- The cornstarchTwo tablespoons blended with two tablespoons cold water gives a distinctly thickened chowder rather than a brothy one. Bring it just to the boil to cook out the starch, then stop; prolonged boiling after the milk goes in risks scorching and can thin the starch again.
- YieldSomething close to three quarts before evaporation, enough for six as a supper dish with crackers.
This comes from one of the recipe books issued by the Corn Products Refining Company, the maker of Karo syrup, Mazola oil and Argo and Kingsford's cornstarch, all of which appear here in a single pot of chowder. Such books were given away or sold cheaply from the 1900s through the 1920s and are among the most useful records of ordinary American home cooking, precisely because they had to make their products look at home in dishes people already ate. Chowder itself is generally traced to the fishing communities of the North Atlantic, the name usually connected to the French chaudière, the cauldron; by the time this book was printed the milk-based version was firmly established as the northern style. Adding sweet corn was an American thrift, stretching a pint of clams into supper for six, and the corn syrup and cornstarch here quietly push the dish further in the direction of the company's shelf. Book: the modern method of preparing delightful foods.