Shrimp and Corn Chowder -- The Bowl That Brought Me Back to August on the Farm

It’s corn season.

If you grew up in Iowa, you don’t need me to explain what that means. You already know. But for anyone reading this from somewhere else, let me tell you: August in Iowa is sweet corn. It’s everywhere. Roadside stands appear overnight like they grew out of the gravel. The grocery store stacks ears in pyramids by the front door. Neighbors you haven’t spoken to since the Fourth of July show up on your porch with a paper bag of Silver Queen and disappear before you can thank them. It’s not just a vegetable. It’s a whole season. It’s a religion.

I grew up with sweet corn the way some kids grow up with a swimming pool — as a fact of August, unremarkable until it’s gone. We grew it. Not field corn, the kind you sell by the bushel, but a whole long row of sweet corn along the east side of the garden, just for eating. My mother put up forty quarts of it every August, standing at the stove in a kitchen that was already ninety degrees, cutting corn off the cob into a big blue enamel pot, sweating through her shirt, and not once complaining about any of it. That’s just what you did. The corn was there, so you put it up. Simple as that.

This is our first full August in Des Moines, and the corn is here too — it’s Iowa, so of course it is — but it’s different. I bought mine at a stand on the side of Douglas Avenue last Saturday, four ears for a dollar fifty, from a teenager who was scrolling his phone between customers. I stood there holding those ears and I thought about the garden, the blue enamel pot, my mother’s hands, and I had one of those moments where you’re doing something perfectly ordinary and the ordinary part just … collapses. And you’re left standing in the parking lot of a convenience store in Des Moines holding four ears of corn and missing everything all at once.

I bought twelve ears.

The teenager looked up from his phone for that one.

“You having a party?” he asked.

“Something like that,” I said.

I wasn’t having a party. I was trying to recreate something I can’t recreate, which is a project I seem to have taken on full-time since we moved. Last week it was the cinnamon swirl bread — trying to make the new kitchen smell like the right one. This week it was twelve ears of sweet corn and a recipe that’s been living in my head for a while: shrimp and corn chowder.

Now, before anyone says anything: I know shrimp isn’t Iowa. Believe me, I know. Marlene never cooked shrimp in her life. If you’d told her you were making shrimp and corn chowder she would have smiled politely and made you a ham sandwich just in case. Shrimp was for restaurants, for special occasions, for people on the coasts who had access to things that didn’t make sense in a landlocked state. We were pork chop people. We were pot roast people.

But I picked this one up somewhere along the way — Kevin’s office Christmas party, three years ago, some caterer had a big pot of it and I ate two bowls and quietly asked for the general idea — and I’ve been making my own version ever since. What I love about it is that the corn is the heart of it. The shrimp is great, but the corn is the soul. And when corn is this good, this August-in-Iowa good, you want it in everything.

I made a pot last Sunday afternoon. Emma was home — she’s doing this gap year thing, which I’m trying very hard to be supportive about and mostly succeeding — and she sat at the breakfast bar (I’m coming around to the breakfast bar, slowly) and talked to me while I cooked. Jack was outside somewhere; that boy gravitates to any patch of grass or dirt like he’s got a compass in his chest. Kevin was watching the Hawkeyes preseason something-or-other. Noah is in Ames, already back for his second year, which still startles me every time I think about it.

Emma asked me why I bought so much corn.

“It’s August,” I said, like that explained it.

She looked at me the way eighteen-year-olds look at their mothers when they think their mothers are being slightly unhinged but don’t want to say so. I recognized that look. I may have used it myself on Marlene once or twice.

“Grandma used to put up forty quarts,” I said.

Emma was quiet for a second. Then: “Forty quarts is a lot.”

“She fed a harvest crew,” I said. “And she was Marlene.”

That ended the conversation, the way invoking Marlene tends to. Not in a bad way — Marlene was a fact, like gravity. You acknowledge it and move on.

The chowder came together in about forty minutes, which is one of the things I love about it. You sweat some onion and celery and garlic in butter. You add diced potato and let it get friendly with the aromatics. You pour in chicken broth and let everything simmer until the potato is tender. Then you add the corn — and I do it in two ways: I blend a cup of the chowder with some of the corn to make it thick and creamy without using a pound of heavy cream, and then I add the rest of the corn whole, so you get those pops of sweetness in every bite. The shrimp goes in at the very end, just a few minutes, because shrimp are the most obliging protein in the world until you overcook them, at which point they become rubber erasers, and nobody wants that.

A splash of cream at the end. Crispy bacon on top. Chives if you have them, green onions if you don’t.

I set a bowl in front of Emma without saying anything and she took one bite and made the sound. You know the sound. The involuntary one. The one that means you don’t need to say anything because your face already said it.

“Mom,” she said.

“I know,” I said.

Jack came in from wherever he’d been — there was dirt on his shoes and something that looked like grass stain on his knee, which means he was probably out back investigating the sad little strip of lawn behind our house like it was forty acres — and I handed him a bowl without asking if he wanted it. He’s fifteen. He always wants it. He ate standing up at the counter, the way Kevin does, the way Kevin’s been doing it since before I met him, and I thought: there it is. That’s where Jack got it. The genetics of a man who eats standing up at counters, passed down through proximity.

Kevin wandered in from the living room and looked at the pot. “Is that the corn stuff?”

“The corn stuff,” I confirmed.

He got a bowl. He sat down, which is more than I can say for his son. He ate most of it before he said anything, and then he said: “This is the one.”

That’s Kevin’s highest rating. Not “this is delicious” or “you should make this again.” Just: “This is the one.” Meaning: this is the version of this thing that I want every time from now on. I’ve been cooking for this man for twelve years and I know his ratings system by heart.

I called Dad after dinner. He’d had corn too — his neighbor Betty had brought him a dozen ears, which he said he didn’t need but ate anyway, because it’s corn and you’re not going to not eat it. He was watching the crop reports. I asked him about his garden and he said the tomatoes were coming in. I asked him if he needed anything and he said no, and then listed four things he needed, which is Roger Holloway’s way of saying yes. I told him I’d be there the weekend after next. He said I didn’t need to. I said I was coming anyway.

We talked about corn for a while — how the yield out east of Grinnell was looking, who was having a good year, whether the weather had cooperated. Dad talks about farming the way some men talk about a game they used to play before their knees gave out. He watches. He tracks. He remembers. He doesn’t have a single acre anymore, but he still knows the price of corn to the cent, still checks the futures, still talks about the land like it’s a patient he’s monitoring from a distance.

I didn’t tell him I bought twelve ears from a kid on Douglas Avenue and cried a little in the parking lot. He’d worry, and there’s nothing to worry about. I’m fine. It’s just corn season, and corn season makes me feel things, and feeling things is allowed.

Marlene would have said: put it up or eat it. Don’t stand around in parking lots getting sentimental about it.

She’d have been right.

So I ate it. I made it into something beautiful. I fed my family. I called my dad.

That’s enough. That’s always enough.

Those twelve ears from Douglas Avenue deserved something worthy of all the feeling they carried, and shrimp and corn chowder felt exactly right—warm and a little indulgent, the kind of thing Marlene would have approved of because it wastes nothing and feeds everyone. I wanted the corn to be the heart of it, not a garnish, and I wanted the whole pot to taste like summer and home and doing something useful with your grief. Here’s how I made it.

Shrimp and Corn Chowder

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 45 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 4 strips bacon, chopped
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 3 stalks celery, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional, but I use it)
• 3 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (about 3 cups)
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 4 cups fresh sweet corn kernels (from about 5–6 ears; frozen works fine in a pinch)
• 1 1/4 pounds medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• Sliced green onions or chives, for serving

Instructions

1. Cook the bacon. In a large heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, cook the chopped bacon until crispy, about 6–8 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside on a paper towel-lined plate. Leave about 1 tablespoon of bacon fat in the pot; drain the rest.
2. Sweat the vegetables. Add the butter to the pot with the bacon fat. Once melted, add the onion and celery and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, paprika, thyme, and cayenne and cook another minute until fragrant.
3. Add potatoes and broth. Add the diced potatoes to the pot and stir to coat in the aromatics. Pour in the chicken broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a steady simmer. Cook until the potatoes are completely tender, about 12–15 minutes.
4. Build the creamy base. Add 2 cups of the corn kernels to the pot. Using an immersion blender, carefully blend a portion of the soup — about a third of it — directly in the pot until you have a thick, creamy base but still have plenty of chunky potato pieces. (Alternatively, ladle about 2 cups of soup into a regular blender, blend until smooth, and stir it back in.) This is the trick that makes it creamy without drowning it in cream.
5. Add remaining corn. Stir in the remaining 2 cups of corn kernels. Let the soup simmer another 3–4 minutes so those kernels heat through and stay whole and sweet.
6. Cook the shrimp. Add the shrimp to the pot in a single layer as best you can. Cook, stirring occasionally, just until the shrimp are pink and opaque, about 3–4 minutes. Do not walk away. Overcooked shrimp are a tragedy and I say that from experience.
7. Finish with cream. Reduce heat to low and stir in the heavy cream. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Let it warm through for another minute or two.
8. Serve. Ladle into bowls. Top with the reserved crispy bacon, sliced green onions or chives, and a little extra black pepper if you like. Serve with crusty bread or oyster crackers. Eat while it’s hot.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 420 | Protein: 28g | Fat: 21g | Carbs: 34g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 720mg