Cooking with Tom
by Tom Blair

 

     The yellow sun rises over the forest and begins to burn off the cloak of fog on a crisp fall morning. In the small village, wood smoke begins to mark the sky as colonists arise to greet the new day in a strange land.
     Due to the failure of many of their crops from their homeland the survival of those intrepid colonists in the 1600s depended in a large part on the corn their Native American friends taught them to grow. From succotash to cornbread, corn in their diet was a source of proteins and carbohydrates and helped to ease the threat of starvation.
    Corn, a New World food, was cultivated in Central America as early as 3400 BC. Its popularity spread over the centuries. At the time of the European exploration of the New World corn was in use by nearly all native populations in the Western Hemisphere.
     The sweet kernels of corn return the golden light of the summer sun to us in many flavorful ways. Harvest a little of summer sunshine this winter and cook up a batch of Harvest Soup. Your own little colony will love it.

 

Harvest Soup

 

Ingredients:
8 slices of bacon, chopped
1/2 cup onions, chopped
16 oz. can creamed corn
10 oz. can of cream of chicken soup
16 oz. can pumpkin
1 cup milk
10 oz. can tomato soup
1/4 tsp. black pepper
 1 tbsp. chives   
1/2 tsp. celery seed
dash nutmeg
dash allspice

 

1. In a large sauce pan brown the bacon over a medium heat. Set bacon aside to drain on paper towels. Discard bacon grease.
2. Saute onion over a medium heat until tender in the pan used for cooking the bacon.
3. Crumble cooked bacon and add to onion. Add the rest of the ingredients to the soup and stir over a low head until well blended.
4. Simmer for five minutes.
Tom Blair is an internationally syndicated columnist. His articles appear in publications throughout the US and Canada. Read his blog and listen to his radio show at www.ExploreTheMidwest.com.
© Tom Blair 2006