Cream of Corn Soup with Crayfish Butter

When I found this soup in The Epicurean, the cookbook of Delmonico’s restaurant in turn-of-the-century New York, it triggered the idea to stop looking slavishly at France for inspiration and to find it around me in California. My interest in American regional cooking, and the California movement, began—story told. The original recipe calls for “green” or very young corn, but I find the best corn to use is the newer white corn, with small kernels that