Chowder 2

 Clear broth chowder may be original, but I believe you have to have milk in order to qualify as a chowder today. Stuff made with tomato broth is soup. Or so I thought. While searching through an old Historical Society cookbook  I found this from Anna M. Sheehan:

Tomato Corn Chowder
1 can condensed tomato soup
2/3 cup water
1 1/4 cup Pet evaporated milk

Mix the above and then add:
1 1/2 cup creamed corn
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons grated onion
Pinch of pepper
Stir constantly while heating over low heat.

My mother and father were married on December 26, 1942, and the wedding reception was held at the Toll House in Whitman. Apparently my mother received a copy of Ruth Wakefield's Toll House Cookbook as a wedding present. Evidence that she used the book was her favorite recipe for blueberry cake (I'll share this at another time). By the time I came along it was HER recipe for blueberry cake, and I only learned its origin when the Historical Society began to sell a reprint of Wakefield's cookbook. For those that don't know Mrs. Wakefield was an OA graduate who invented the chocolate chip cookie, the state cookie of Massachusetts. I guessed that my mother's recipe for clam chowder might have come from the same cookbook so I searched it out and found this recipe in the "Advice for Bride's" section:

New England Clam Chowder
(Basic Recipe for New England Brides)
Try out a 1 1/2 inch cube salt pork cut fine
Fry in it
1 onion, sliced. Add:
4 cups diced raw potatoes
2 cups boiling water. Cook 5 minutes.
Add liquor of 1 peck clams, steamed and shucked.
Remove black necks. Add clams. Simmer until potatoes are done.
Add 4 cups of milk, scalded.
Season with salt and pepper

Prepare 1 hour ahead of serving to allow chowder to develop best flavor. Dot with butter and serve with Boston common crackers or water crackers. Serves 8.

An interesting and authentic recipe that doesn't use cream or half and half like modern recipes just milk probably unhomongenized. Sadly, this was not my mother's recipe! Hers involved frying the onion in butter or margarine. (Sorry Melanie, I couldn't convince her to use bacon in corn chowder either), and evaporated milk (usually with regular milk also), canned clams, potatoes, and bottled clam juice proportions currently unknown. Where did this mixture come from? One can easily see that the evaporated milk took the place of the task of scalding milk and my family wasn't going to waste fresh steamers on a chowder when they could be boiled up with lobster for a real feast. Still, my mother never worked without a recipe from somewhere even if she had memorized the ingredients long before, where did the original come from?
A clue came from the New England Chowder Compendium website mentioned yesterday:

This 1942 recipe for corn chowder is from a magazine ad pushing Armour products. My mother was an inveterate recipe clipper almost to the day she died so here was a lead. With all the Rosie the Riveters at work, convenience foods must have become popular during World War II. My mother was teaching elementary school at the time so she was certainly busy. The Chowder Compendium added another recipe from a 1944 Army Technical Manual-Chowder for 100 men that was also made from evaporated milk although it added celery, flour, and melted fat to the more basic recipes. I still haven't found the source of my mother's recipe or the proportions of ingredients, but I'm confident that her version tells a story about life on the home front during World War II, and it still tasted better than any version I've had in a restaurant.

Tomorrow: The joy of blogging, Chet Raymo, and Prezi.