Corn Chowder

A filling chowder, excellent for fall and clear through to the chilly early days of spring. This is my adaptation of a recipe from one of those recipe card collections called, "My Great Recipes." The card is dated 1984, but I got it in about 1987 from someone who was getting rid of a lot of things. They were going to toss these recipe cards and I looked through them and took about ten or twelve before they hit the trash. Who the "my" is from the title, I have no idea, nor do I know if the company is even still in business. Again, this is my adaptation, so it is not quite exactly the recipe from the card. You can make this as thick or thin as you like by increasing or decreasing the roux, or omitting it all together. When I was a kid, my father liked everything VERY watered down. My mother made stews and chili pretty much like soup to suit him. I'm the exact opposite, as I like stews or chili very thick (gravy too). Of course when my father was growing up, the family didn't have a lot of money, and it was common for people to try to stretch such dishes by adding more water, a practice that even came in handy for those unaccustomed to such "stretching" during the Great Depression.

2 medium potatoes, diced, then cooked in boiling water with 1/2 teaspoon salt until tender
1 small onion, chopped, then sauteed in some butter until tender
1 10-12 oz. bag of frozen corn
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 3/4 cups milk
3/4 cup half and half
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon thyme leaves
1/2 teaspoon paprika
salt and pepper to taste
 

Cook the diced potatoes in boiling salted water until they are just done (you don't want them mushy). In a skillet, melt some butter and saute the chopped onion until tender. Now melt the 2 tablespoons of  butter over low to medium heat in the pan you will use for the chowder, then gradually whisk in the flour until it forms a kind of paste (roux). Whisk and cook for about two minutes, to remove the raw flour taste, but the mixture (roux) should not become dark. Gradually add the milk, whisking constantly, and add more milk as it all thickens. Add both the cooked potatoes and onion and combine both with all of the other ingredients, including the half and half. Simmer until totally heated through, making sure the corn kernels are no longer frozen. Sprinkle a little paprika on the top of each serving.

WORD HISTORY:
Grade/Graduate-Both of these words can be used as verbs as well as nouns. "Grade" goes back to Indo European "ghredh," which had the notion "to go, to step, to walk." This gave Latin the noun "gradus," with the meaning "step," and by extension "step," in the sense, "rank or position of someone or something;" thus also, "a means of measurement." This gave French, a Latin-based language, "grade," which was then borrowed into English in the early 1500s. "Graduate" has the same history, except that Latin "gradus" also produced the verb "graduare," meaning "to take or receive a degree," which then produced the noun "graduatus," meaning, "a recipient of a degree, a holder of a degree." Both the verb and noun were borrowed into English in the early 1400s.