to give the soup some body and help keep the butterfat
properly emulsified into the mix.
The great thing about this stock-infusing technique is that
it’s totally adaptable. Sometimes I feel like making a smooth
and sweet corn velouté, which I’ll make like my chowder,
but omitting the potatoes and cream and blending until
completely smooth. And if you do like the flavor of bacon
in your chowder, go for it—nothing’s stopping you, except
perhaps your cholesterol and your spouse.
I, fortunately, have a spouse who can be plied with corn
soup when I really want to get my way. Might I suggest you
try the same?
How to Buy Corn
Want to know the secret to great chowder or corn on the
cob? Great corn. It’s as simple as that. The trick is getting
the corn. After that, it’s a cake walk.
The first time I tasted really great corn—one of those
early food memories that made me realize food was more
than just fuel—was on a second-grade field trip to an
Upstate New York farm: me and the farmer on a tractor, the
farmer grabbing an ear of corn as he drove by the field,
shucking it, and handing it to me to taste. In my head I was
thinking, “Holy Skeletor! I’d trade in my Battle-Armor He-
Man for more of this!” which roughly translates to my
current vocabulary as, “Holy f*&k, this tastes amazing!”
(My eloquence has diminished significantly through the
years.) Incredibly sweet, bright, and flavorful, it became the
epitome of good corn in my mind, the corn that all corn
since has tried to live up to—something that happens only