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October 10
Menu: Cream of Corn, a la Creole; Scalloped Fish and Oysters; Potato Croquettes; Cauliflower and Beet Salad; Squash Pie Coffee Cream of Corn, a la Creole-Put 1 can of corn through meat chopper, add 1 large onion, sliced, 1 sprig of parsley, and 1 pint of water. Cook altogether 20 minutes, being careful not to let it scorch, then press through a fine sieve, extracting all pulp possible. Melt 2 tablespoons Crisco, add an equal amount of sifted flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and dash of pepper. Cook to smooth paste; then add, very gradually, 1 quart scalded milk. When thick and smooth, add corn pulp and juice and 1 tablespoon sugar. Add salt to taste, and just before serving add 1 cup scalded cream or very rich milk.
A roux-thickened cream soup from Crisco's own promotional cookbook, built on canned corn and a quart of milk. The method is sound; only the equipment and a few proportions need translating.
- Crisco, and what else worksThe two tablespoons of shortening are here because the book exists to sell it. Butter gives a better-tasting roux in a milk soup; a neutral oil works if you want the same clean flavor the original intended.
- Meat chopperA hand-cranked grinder clamped to the table. A food processor pulsed a few times does the same job, and a blender does it better since everything is strained afterward anyway.
- The can of cornCanned corn ran roughly 16 to 20 ounces in this period; a standard 15-oz can is close enough. The recipe most likely means plain whole-kernel corn rather than cream-style.
- ScaldingMilk was scalded in 1913 to kill off souring organisms and to speed thickening. With pasteurized milk it is optional, though heating the milk before it goes into the roux still prevents lumps and shortens the cooking.
- The straining step is the pointSieving removes the corn hulls. Press hard through a fine sieve and keep working the pulp; skimp here and the texture is grainy.
- Do not boil after the cream goes inThe recipe adds the scalded cream just before serving. Keep the soup below a boil from that point, since a thickened milk soup can curdle.
- SeasoningA tablespoon of sugar with a can of modern sweet corn may be more than you want; taste first. The recipe's own instruction to salt at the end is the right order.
- YieldA quart of milk, a pint of water and a cup of cream makes roughly two quarts, or six to eight first-course servings.
The Story of Crisco (1913) was written by Marion Harris Neil for Procter & Gamble, two years after the company introduced its hydrogenated cottonseed shortening. Its recipes are tied to a calendar of daily dinner menus -- hence the "October 11" at the foot of this one -- a promotional format that put the product into ordinary household planning rather than into showpiece cooking. The dish itself is a standard cream soup of the era: a white sauce built on a flour-and-fat roux, thinned with milk and flavored with a strained puree. The "a la Creole" tag is used loosely here, since none of the tomato, sweet pepper or cayenne that usually justifies the name appears.