820-Lancaster Finning, Saturday, Junt 25, 1994
LOU ANN GOOD
Lancaster Farming Staff
EPHRATA (Lancaster Co.)
Ban the mother-in-law jokes in
Arlene Giberson’s presence. No
demeaning comments about
mother-in-laws allowed. Arlene
owes a lot to her mother-in-law
(the former Frances Giberson).
It was her mother-in-law that
enabled Arlene to win the top prize
of $3OO for the best chicken com
soup ever.
“1 spent a lot of time teaming to
cook from my mother-in-law so
that I coultj make food the way my
husband liked it,” Arlene said.
Her soup is also the way the
panel of five judges likes chicken
com soup. Arlene’s entry placed
first during the Pennfield Farms
Chicken Com Soup Cook-Off held
June 17 at The Artworks in
Ephrata.
“I knew she’d win,” said her
husband Robert. “She’s a great
cook even better than my
mother at many of the things she
makes.”
As if that comment wasn’t the
ultimate praise, Robert said that
you can take the same ingredients
and put them in front of two cooks
and my wife’s (soup) will always
taste the best.
‘That’s because she knows the
exact moment when it’s done,” he
said.
During competition, after
Arlene had removed her soup from
the stove, a photographer asked her
to put the soup back on the burner
and bring it to a boil so that he
could get a picture of the soup with
steam rising from it
Arlene refused. “It’s finished. If
I put it back on the stove, it will be
overcooked and the chicken will
taste stringy,” she said.
Although this was the first cook
ing competition she entered, it
wasn’t the first time that she heard
raves about her soup.
She said that every fall, the fami
ly hosts a crowd in their backyard
at their Willow Street home. “My
soup seems to be a major draw.
Friends and neighbors often tell me
that it’s the best they’ve eaten.”
Since Arlene is primarily a
dump and taste cook, she found it a
bit difficult to write down exact
measurements for the soup, but
after a few experimentations she
was able to define the measure
ments for a written recipe that
passed preliminary scrutiny and
won her a spot in the finalists
circle.
The next hurdle was to locate the
right com since this is not com sea-
Semi-finalists in the Pennfield Farms Chicken Corn Soup Cook-Off Includes, from
left: Marian Wile, Darlene Scott, Wayne Frampton, Arlene Glberson, David Fellen
baum, and Wendy Newswanger. Tim Horn of Pennfield Farms is on the right.
Best Chicken Com Soup Ever
son for the county and Arlene’s
home-frozen corn supply was
depleted. Her husband scouted the
supermarkets, purchased some that
had no taste, and discarded it He
finally located some fresh Silver
Queen com at a market
“I bit some right off the cob
before cooking it and I told my
wife this is a winner,” Robert said.
He helped his wife cut off the
com and blanch it immediately.
“The sooner you get corn
blanched, the better it tastes; other
wise, the sugar in the com turns to
starch,” he said.
The couple credit the fresh com
to the soup’s appeal.
“Many people ask me if I had put
sugar in my soup because it tasted
sweet, but I did not. I made it exact
ly like the recipe I submitted,”
Arlene said.
The judges said the com taste
was wonderful. There were lots of
com and chicken chunks in just the
right size in the soup, and the flavor
of every ingredient was tops.
Second-place award and $l3O
went to Darlene Scott of Cham
bersburg. She, too, said that “fresh
com is the secret.”
As she cut com off the cob dur
ing the competition, Darlene talked
about her recipe.
“I spent a small fortunate for the
com and it is not the best. General
ly I use white com, but I could only
find yellow in my area so this
won’t taste as good as I usually
make,” Darlene said.
Another secret for prize
winning soup, Darlene said, is to
cook it low and slow.
Darlene received her introduc
tion to cooking in 4-H. Always a
math whiz, Darlene planned to be a
math teacher until her senior year
in high school when she needed to
take a home economics class.
‘That cured me of math," said
Darlene, who found out cooking
and sewing were much more fun.
Since then, cooking and sewing
have been part of several jobs that
she has held. Now, she is an unit
leader for Avon and has 35 people
underneath her.
Her three children always raved
about her soup and inspired her to
enter the contest.
Third prize went to Wayne
Frampton of Quairyville. He has
been cooking for 25 years.
“The first bread that I made, you
could throw it at the wall and hit it
with a bat,” Wayne said. But he
persevered and became so good
that he now has a sandwich and
soup stand at Meadowbrook Mark
et in Leola.
“People always tell me that I
have the best-tasting chicken com
soup,” Wayne said. That includes
his wife Sandra, a daughter, and
loyal customers at his Meadow
brook Market stand.
He needed to adapt his recipe a
bit to make a smaller batch for
competition. Generally he makes
the broth one day and stores it in
the refrigerator so that he can skim
off the fat before adding other
ingredients. But, on competition
day, Wayne speeded up the process
to make it a one-day affair.
Six semi-finalists for the event
were chosen from more than 30
mail-in entries.
Pennfield Farms sponsored the
cook-off as part of the Pennsylva
nia Dutch Food Festival, which is a
celebration of food throughout the
Pennsylvania Dutch county from
June 13 to 18.
Judges for the event included Pat
Johnson, food writer for Lancaster
Newspaper; George Weigel, food
writer for Harrisburg Patriot News;
Chuck Eichmann, chef for
Donecker’s Restaurant; Lori Burk
holder, WGAL-TV Live co-host;
and Betty Groff, owner of Groffs
Farm Restaurant.
For those who are eager to try
these mouth-watering soups, here
are the recipes of the top three
placings.
ARLENE GIBERSON
CHICKEN CORN SOUP
First Prize
3 pounds chicken pieces
3 quarts water
2 teaspoons salt
'/• teaspoon pepper
7 cups white com, fresh or
frozen
1 tablespoon instant bouillon, or
to taste
2 tablespoons butter
2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
Rivcls;
'A cup flour
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons water
Cook chicken in water and salt
until tender. Remove chicken from
broth, cool, and remove from
bones.
Add com, bouillon, and pepper
to hot broth, return to boil and cook
for 10 minutes.
Mix flour, egg. and water.
Drop rivel mixture by
'A teaspoonfuls into boiling soup;
continue cooking S minutes. Add
chopped eggs, parsley, butter, and
chicken. Do not cook again as
broth is hot enough to heat the
chicken. Yields 8 I'/acup
servir
Fresh corn and a rich chicken stock results in a first-prize
placing and $3OO for Arlene Giberson.
Second-place winner Darlene Scott said that the secret of
good chicken corn soup is in fresh corn.
“This is my first contest. I*m scared to death, but it’s a lot
of fun," Wayne Frampton of Quarryvllle said. Wayne placed
third and won $75.