“Since you have questioned men at the restaurant, you know that the corn comes from a man named Duncan McLeod, who grows it on a farm some sixty miles north of here. He has been supplying it for four years, and he knows precisely what I require. It must be nearly mature, but not quite, and it must be picked not more than three hours before it reaches me.
“Roasted in the husk in the hottest possible oven for forty minutes, shucked at the table, and buttered and salted, nothing else, it is ambrosia. No chef’s ingenuity and imagination have ever created a finer dish.
“Ideally the corn should go straight from the stalk to the oven, but of course that’s impractical for city dwellers. If it’s picked at the right stage of development it is still a treat for the palate after twenty-four hours, or even forty-eight; I have tried it.”
—Nero Wolfe in Murder is Corny, by Rex Stout
From the days of the first settlers right up through the beginning of the twentieth century, for most Americans in rural areas, every meal included corn. Cornmeal mush would likely appear at breakfast. Corn soup or cornbread, and possibly both, might accompany the midday dinner. At supper, corn pudding could be served—or corn on the cob during the summer. Corndodgers would often be carried along in a pocket or saddlebag, to keep one’s energy up in the fields or on the road. As cities grew and farms became more successful, other grains became more readily available, especially wheat. This, combined with the arrival of immigrants who had never had to rely on corn and who valued the soft white bread possible only with wheat, saw corn diminishing in its dominance on the dinner table for many people by the beginning of the 1900s.1 (Or, rather, cornmeal diminished. Sweet corn remained the country’s favorite vegetable.) Then World War I, with its motto “Food Will Win the War” and its food-saving “Wheatless Wednesdays,” reintroduced Americans to the joys of cornmeal. Suddenly, cookbooks were again filled with recipes for cornbreads, corn waffles, and corn muffins.2
(Of course, for some regions and ethnic groups this diminishing did not occur, but as a trend, especially in urban and suburban populations in the northern half of the country, cornmeal took a back seat to wheat for a while.)
Today, while corn is no longer quite so inevitable on America’s dinner tables as it was on the frontier in the early 1800s, it is still almost ubiquitous in the culture. From America’s much-loved sweet corn, to regional hominy-or cornmeal-based favorites, such as grits, cornbread, corn cakes, and hush puppies, to dishes cherished as part of an ethnic heritage, such as tamales or polenta and even Chinese corn and crab soup, corn is no stranger to most Americans. And, of course, there are cornflakes and all those corn-based snacks (popcorn, corn puffs, and tortilla chips representing only a small part of this category). More recently, there has been an explosion of gluten-free products based on corn. No, corn definitely has not vanished.
The following recipes span the centuries and reflect both the reliance on corn and the way corn remained incorporated in the diet as cooking moved from survival mode to increasing refinements. Some of the recipes came from friends, for whom they were family traditions. Many of them I found in cookbooks from the 1800s. Because recipe writing was pretty inexact in previous centuries, I’ve needed to update those recipes (some more than others). However, with the updates, I’ve included the original recipes as they appeared in those cookbooks, so you can appreciate how far cookbooks have come.
One important note, for those of you who wish to make these recipes: cornmeal at the time these recipes were part of the daily diet was stone-ground. If you buy a box of cornmeal in the flour and baking aisle at your grocery store, if it does not say “stone ground,” it’s going to be steel roller–ground. That makes a much finer meal that cooks in minutes and is less expensive. It will not give you the lovely, chewy texture or corny fragrance that stone-ground will. That said, it will give a softer, more refined texture and dramatically cut your cooking time. It’s great if you’re in a hurry. However, if you are using a steel roller–ground meal, because it cooks so much faster, look at the package for directions and use their recipes. The recipes below all assume stone-ground meal, which may be in the baking aisle but is often stocked in the health food/natural or gourmet aisle of grocery stores. Look for the medium grind. (See “Buying Cornmeal,” at the end of the book, for some brand names, websites, and other suggestions.)
Cooking in the 1800s was done largely with products that were always in the larder or just across the farmyard: cream, whole milk, fresh eggs, good butter, lard, and salt pork. That said, with the expanding railways and highways, exotic ingredients began to appear soon after the Midwest was settled. In addition, people moving into the Midwest introduced new uses for familiar ingredients. So while the basics are always present, you will see a few other ingredients.
Of course, everyone put his or her own spin on the recipes, using what was on hand for whatever type of dish was needed. This resulted in hundreds of variations for nearly every dish. Pretty much all of them were delicious.
A number of recipes call for corn grated from the cob or freshly cut from the cob. This is a wonderful idea when sweet corn is in season, but often the times one most wants a corn dish (other than corn on the cob), it’s cold outside and sweet corn is not in season. That’s when I turn to frozen corn. Frozen corn hasn’t been heated, like canned corn has, so it’s slightly firmer and nearer to what you’d have if you used fresh. However, if fresh is available, for every 1 cup of corn kernels in a recipe, you’ll need about 2 large ears of corn. Of course, the size of ears varies, so you might want to have an extra ear handy, should your initial ears come up short.
All of these dishes are wholesome. Corndodgers are perhaps a bit rougher than what people expect today and are offered more for historic value and as a reminder of the fact that life was a bit less tame in the old days. The others, however, are quite wonderful and still worth serving—especially the puddings, the corn oysters, and the chowder.
These are not the only recipes that used corn or corn products, but they are among those most commonly seen—pretty much in every American cookbook from the early 1800s through the early 1900s, in fact, usually with multiple recipes for the same dish in each cookbook. With a piece of meat, either from the smokehouse or from a hunting trip, this is truly what home cooking was like across the Midwest for much of its history.
There was, for a few centuries, a truism that water should be brought to a boil before the corn was picked. This was because most people were eating green corn—unripe field corn (which was, in fact, yellow and would look pretty much like sweet corn to us). In green corn, the sugar begins to turn to starch as soon as it’s picked. Of course, for those who raise corn and eagerly pick “roasting ears” before their field corn matures, the “cook it soon” rule is still applicable. With true sweet corn, however, the starch is slower to form, so there is a bit more time to get the corn from the field to the pot of boiling water. (Though one should not let it languish long-term in the fridge, because while it converts more slowly to starch, it does begin that conversion once it’s picked. The so-called supersweets will stay sweet longer—twenty-four hours after picking, an ear of sweet corn will already have less sugar content than an ear of supersweet picked at the same time3—but there is also the issue of drying out. So try not to wait too long after buying corn, if you plan on eating it in this form. In fact, the same day you buy it is the ideal for sweet corn.) There are many ways to prepare sweet corn, from the roasting that Nero Wolfe fancies (in which the sugars caramelize nicely), to steaming, to grilling, to the method I use most often at home, which is quick and offers good corny taste.
Put a pot of water on to boil. Husk your sweet corn and clean it of silks. (Never take off the husks until you’re ready to cook the corn.) As soon as the water boils, drop in the corn, put on a lid, and turn off the heat. Wait three minutes, then enjoy. You probably won’t even need butter.
As Henry David Thoreau wrote, “And pray what more can a reasonable man desire, in peaceful times, in ordinary noons, than a sufficient number of ears of green sweet corn boiled, with the addition of salt?”
The son of a backwoodsman, Abraham Lincoln grew up raising corn and eating corndodgers. They are chewy and corny and a bit rugged. (Or, as one song lamented, “My bread is corn-dodgers, both solid and tough.”4) Lincoln loved them with honey, which would have been readily available to early settlers—even very poor ones. (Honeybees, which were introduced from Europe, had successfully adapted to the New World and quickly spread, well ahead of the settlers, so wild honey was available in the forests even on the frontier.) Availability aside, I’ve tried corndodgers now with jam, with butter, and with honey, and Lincoln had it right—they are remarkably better with honey. Still, their real virtue is in their historicity.
Corndodgers were generally made with lard, though meat drippings or butter could be added, as well. Lard was common on the frontier, not just because there were lots of hogs, but, even more importantly, because it doesn’t require refrigeration. I tried these with butter first and then lard, and I think the lard actually worked a little better. Plus, with lard, they’d last longer in your saddlebags—or today, your backpack.
From Buckeye Cookery and Practical House Keeping,
by Estelle Woods Wilcox, published in 1877
To one quart of corn meal add a little salt and a small table-spoon of lard; scald with boiling water and beat hard for a few minutes; drop a large spoonful in a well-greased pan. The batter should be thick enough to just flatten on the bottom, leaving them quite high in the center. Bake in a hot oven.
1 cup stone-ground cornmeal, medium grind
1 Tbs. lard, room temperature (plus additional for greasing baking sheet)
1 tsp. salt
1 cup water
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet or jellyroll pan.
Put the cornmeal, lard, and salt in a bowl. Bring the water to a rapid boil, then immediately pour it over the meal and lard. Beat the cornmeal mixture to make sure the lard is incorporated throughout the batter. Using a spoon, drop about a tablespoon of batter on the baking sheet in a roughly oblong shape. As noted in the original recipe, the batter should be thick enough to flatten on the bottom but still stand up nicely. Place in the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes, or until crisp on the outside. Makes 12–14.
While corn took many forms in the kitchen, the most common was cornmeal mush. It is also the traditional corn dish that people seem to remember most frequently, and usually fondly.
Ohio farmer Ed Zimmerman, in commenting on his youth, relates that cornmeal mush was the main dish in the 1930s. “Sunday, we’d have a big bowl of mush with cream and sugar. Then, next day, we’d have fried mush. We had mush every week.”
Marie Sila’s family farmed in McLean County, Illinois, in the first half of the twentieth century. When asked what her favorite farm memory was, her blue eyes sparkled as she recalled, “There is nothing better than cornmeal mush simmering on the back of a wood-burning stove. Talking about wood-burning stoves doesn’t make me sound old, does it?” Of course, for those of us who know how late electricity came to farms, it doesn’t. In a moment, Marie had her recipe box on her lap, going through cards that have been in there for generations. “You cook the mush and let it set up overnight. Then you slice it and fry it until it’s just getting a little golden. It’s so good,” she adds, with a bit of wistfulness in her voice. She pulled out a card that had clearly been used often, for cornmeal mush. I was amused to note that, on the back, she had added notes as to how this recipe can be altered to produce a very nice polenta—because the cornmeal used for mush is so nearly like that used for polenta: a nice medium-grind cornmeal.
Of course, telling me about mush wasn’t good enough, and before I knew it, Marie was in the kitchen, starting a batch. I would have to wait until morning to try it, because, though it can be served as a hot cereal as soon as it’s cooked, Marie wanted me to have it fried. Serve the fried mush with maple syrup, honey, or molasses, and you have a breakfast that will gladden the heart of any hungry farmer.
The double boiler specified in Marie’s recipe is one of many ways cooks found to lessen the amount of work needed to prepare mush. Another way is baking it in the oven. As it cooks, mush gets really thick, and toward the end, it is so thick that it is no longer circulating. That means you either have to stir it constantly (with a heavy wooden paddle, one old recipe advises) or have it burn on the bottom. Ovens or double boilers get around that problem.
Marie Sila’s Recipe
Combine and stir:
1 cup stone-ground white or yellow cornmeal (medium grind)
1/2 cup cold water
1 tsp. salt
Place in the top of a double boiler:
4 cups boiling water or boiling water and milk
Stir in cornmeal mixture gradually.
Cook and stir the mush over quick heat from 2 to 3 minutes. Steam, covered, over—not in—hot water 25 to 30 minutes. Stir frequently. Serve with syrup, honey, molasses, milk, or cream.
OR pour into a loaf pan to chill. When firm, slice and sauté in cooking fat until slightly crisp and browned. Serve with honey, molasses, syrup, or brown sugar.
If you want to make Marie’s polenta, it would actually be almost as old and just as authentic as the mush recipe. Polenta recipes began appearing in American cookbooks in the 1800s. Here are the notes from the back of Marie’s card:
“Use chicken broth instead of water and/or milk and add a little Parmesan cheese. Spread in a thin layer, not a loaf.”
It is worth noting that polenta made this way will be slightly different from polenta produced in Italy, because the corn you’ll most commonly find in stores will be the dent corn most common in the United States, while Italians tend to use flint corn. Of course, if you want to get serious about your polenta, you can order ground flint corn, but the difference will be subtle enough that it’s unlikely anyone will notice—and polenta made from any good medium-grind cornmeal is very nice.
In the United States, the word pudding conjures images of something sweet and creamy. It is hard to imagine how that evolved from the word’s original meaning. Pudding originally meant things chopped up and mixed with grain and stuffed in an animal’s intestines or stomach to be steamed or boiled. In other words, it was a sausage. Haggis is a pudding in this sense (“Great Chieftain o’ the Puddin’-race,” declared Robert Burns). From there, it became anything chopped up with grain and suet added, and then steamed in a bag or sack. The Christmas pudding Bob Cratchit and family were preparing in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol was of this sort. However, a pudding could still be savory as well as sweet. This leads to the current definition of pudding offered by Webster’s Dictionary: “a boiled or baked soft food usually with a cereal base.” The example given of this definition in the very American Webster’s is, in fact, “corn pudding.” Only after this definition does Webster’s admit to the soft, creamy dessert Americans now commonly call pudding. In speaking of pudding here, however, I am referring to the first definition, in which it is a soft food, potentially sweet or savory, with a base of cereal grain. Puddings were an important food form up until the early 1900s and often had an entire chapter to themselves in cookbooks.
While there were many variations on the theme of corn pudding, there are essentially two basic categories: puddings made with green corn (sweet corn), and those made with cornmeal. Cookbooks published up until the early 1900s generally identified pudding made with cornmeal as Indian pudding or Indian meal pudding, often also identifying cornmeal in any recipe as Indian meal. Pretty much all cookbooks from the era published recipes for both basic pudding types.
Puddings made from sweet corn versus cornmeal are quite different—and not just different in texture. Green/sweet corn pudding is savory, meant to be a side dish, while cornmeal pudding is sweet and intended for dessert. I’ve included recipes for both types of pudding.
While I initially prepared this pudding by grating ears of corn, I eventually switched to using thawed frozen corn. First, grating corn is messy and time-consuming. Second, unless it’s the height of summer, great sweet corn may not be readily available. Frozen corn tastes good all year—and it makes the recipe easy enough that you might actually consider preparing it. (Which you should, if you like corn.) While the name is “pudding,” you’ll have a better idea of what to expect if you think of this as kind of a crustless corn quiche. Because this recipe doesn’t use any wheat flour, it can be a blessing to anyone who is gluten-intolerant.
From Mrs. Owen’s Illinois Cookbook, by Mrs. T. J. V. Owen, 1871
Grate about twelve large, full ears of sweet corn, to this add one quart of sweet milk, one quarter of a pound of fresh butter, four well beaten eggs, as much pepper and salt as is necessary to season it well; stir well together and bake in a well greased pudding dish. This is an excellent dish to eat with meat.
3 cups frozen sweet corn, thawed
2 cups whole milk
4 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
4 Tbs. butter, melted
Some form of fat with which to grease a 2-quart baking dish (lard would be traditional, but an alternative fat would make the dish vegetarian)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Use a stick blender or food processor to semi-purée the corn, to roughly imitate corn grated off the cob. Whisk the milk and eggs together, until completely combined. Whisk in the salt and pepper. Stir the melted butter into the corn. Then stir the milk and eggs into the corn. Pour into your greased baking dish, put on a center rack in the oven, and bake for one hour. Should be beginning to get golden on top when done, and no longer be liquid or wobbly. (If you’re concerned, try poking a hole and pressing lightly on the surface. If no liquid squirts out, you’re done.) Let it cool for about 15 minutes before serving. Enjoy as a side dish at dinner or as a light main dish at lunch, with a salad. Actually, with a side of bacon, it would make a good breakfast, too. Makes 6–8 servings.
Cornmeal puddings range from classic English steamed puddings, involving suet, pudding molds, and many hours of steaming, to simpler baked puddings with molasses. I’ve chosen the simpler type of Indian meal pudding for inclusion here. Even within the category of non-suet Indian meal puddings, there are considerable variations, though the two major types are with eggs and without eggs. Unlike many recipes of the era, the original here is actually fairly easy to follow, though I’ve reduced the amounts and filled in a few missing details in the updated version.
This creates a wonderful dessert with a texture somewhere between an English steamed pudding and a really moist cake. The molasses provides most of the flavor, though the spices and lemon zest add interest. This would traditionally be served with the classic hard sauce that was generally ladled over plum puddings, or possibly English custard sauce or heavy cream, but a scoop of vanilla ice cream would work beautifully, or a squirt of whipped cream—though the pudding is lovely and moist and can stand on its own.
From Mrs. Owen’s Illinois Cookbook, by Mrs. T. J. V. Owen, 1871
Cut up a quarter of a pound of butter in a pint of molasses, and warm them together till the butter is melted; boil one quart of milk, and while scalding hot pour it over a pint of sifted corn meal, and stir in the molasses and butter, and let it steep for an hour covered over; take off the cover and let it cool; when cool beat six eggs, and into it add a tablespoonful of mixed cinnamon and nutmeg and the grated peel of a lemon; stir the whole very hard, and put it into a buttered dish and bake it two hours. Serve with any kind of sauce.
1 cup stone-ground cornmeal, medium grind
4 Tbs. salted butter
1 cup molasses
2 cups whole milk
3 eggs
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. grated lemon zest
Additional butter for greasing the baking dish
Put the cornmeal in a mixing bowl. Cut up the butter and put it in a small saucepan with the molasses. Warm the butter and molasses together until the butter is melted. In another pan, bring the milk to a boil. When it is at a full boil (but before it boils over, which milk can do rather suddenly), pour it immediately over the cornmeal. Add the warm molasses and melted butter, and stir thoroughly. (A whisk is good for this, as it will prevent the cornmeal from clumping.) Cover the bowl and let it rest for an hour.
At the end of the hour, remove the cover and let the mixture cool off. When it is not much warmer than room temperature, preheat the oven to 275 degrees.
Beat the three eggs. Add the spices and lemon zest to the eggs. Then add the egg mixture to the cornmeal mixture, stirring vigorously to make sure everything is evenly distributed. Pour the batter into a buttered 2-quart baking dish. Place in the oven and bake, uncovered, for 2 hours. Can be served warm, with or without sauce or ice cream, but it’s also dandy at room temperature—and is moist and lovely straight from the fridge for about a week.
Once the railways connected the prairie with the East Coast, there was a sudden and widespread oyster fad. Whole chapters of midwestern cookbooks from the mid- to late 1800s are given over to oyster recipes. Even relatively small towns in the still-rough Midwest had oyster bars (aka oyster parlors, oyster houses, or oyster saloons). In culturally diverse settlements where residents might have had little else in common, they all wanted oysters.5
But what happened when there were no oysters? Well, you faked it. Every cookbook with an oyster chapter also has at least a couple of recipes for “corn oysters,” a fried oyster lookalike made with grated corn. These are better than you might imagine, crusty on the outside and soft on the inside—the mouth feel is remarkably like a fried oyster, at least when they’re hot. Even though it is actually less helpful than the first recipe given for corn oysters, I included the recipe (from the same cookbook) for the Palmer House’s version, because it shows that the oyster craze not only transcended ethnicities, it also affected all levels of society. Do try these—they’re surprisingly good—but do eat them fresh and still crispy and warm.
From The Baptist Ladies’ Cook Book, Baptist Ladies’ Aid Society, Monmouth, Illinois, 1895, Contributed by Margaret Dunbar
To one quart grated corn, add three eggs and three or four grated crackers, beat well and season with pepper and salt. Have ready in skillet butter and lard, or beef drippings in equal proportions, hot but not scorching. Drop in little cakes about the size of an oyster (using a teaspoon for the purpose). When brown turn and fry on other side, being very careful that they do not burn. Serve hot. The white of the eggs should be beaten to a stiff froth and added just before frying. When green corn is out of season, canned corn or “kornlet” may be used.
Palmer House, Chicago
Grate six ears of corn, and mix with one tablespoon flour, two eggs. Salt and pepper to taste. Drop spoonfuls in hot lard and fry like oysters.
2 cups grated sweet corn
2 eggs, separated
1/2 teaspoon salt
A few grinds of black pepper
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup lard
As I related in the intro to the recipe for Green/Sweet Corn Pudding, above, you can save yourself the mess of grating the corn by simply thawing 2 cups of frozen sweet corn and using a food processor or stick blender to create the same effect. Whether you break out the grater or the stick blender, put the “processed” corn in a mixing bowl. Beat egg yolks until light. Stir egg yolks, salt, pepper, and flour into the grated corn. Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Gently fold egg whites into corn mixture. Heat the lard in a skillet. Using a spoon, drop corn batter into hot fat in amounts and shape that roughly imitate the size and shape of an oyster battered for frying (generally about a tablespoon of batter). Fry until brown on one side, and then turn. (Don’t worry if you turn them before they’re done. You can always turn them back again.) Keep an eye on these, because they go pretty quickly once you get started. Once brown on both sides, remove to and drain on a paper towel. Serve hot. Makes about 16–20.
Recipes for corn chowder appear in many of the old cookbooks, but also in pretty much every new cookbook that examines the Midwest or farming life or corn, though with myriad variations. And with good reason: corn chowder is really delicious, versatile, and filling. Until relatively recently, farms had large gardens that would supply whatever needs were not met by the cash crops filling the families’ main fields. There would be herbs and greens, potatoes and onions, squash and beans, sweet corn and popcorn, cabbage, carrots, turnips, cucumbers, beets, eggplant, peppers, parsnips, and more. So the trailblazers might have had grim monotony in their diet, but those living on well-established farms enjoyed considerable variety. Soups and stews were a great outlet for the abundance of the garden—and before stoves were common, one-pot meals were a necessity, with that one pot hanging over the open fireplace.
In older cookbooks, the recipes given are more often for corn soup: cut the kernels off the cob, boil the cobs to create your broth, take out the cobs, add the corn kernels and enough milk to make it rich and creamy, season to taste, and that was it. Very corny, really tasty, but pretty basic—not a lot of depth or complexity. However, it was easily produced on the frontier before those great gardens got going. Then, once the gardens were thriving, the concept of chowder introduced by settlers from New England was quickly adopted, with potatoes and other vegetables making the soup more of a meal.
Some versions of this chowder use cream instead of milk. People doing hard physical work were always in search of additional calories, so cream would help. However, cream could be sold to the creamery or made into butter, so that was probably not as common an ingredient as whole milk. Some recent recipes use half red pepper and half green pepper, to make it prettier. My version is based on a dozen sources, both living and in print, and includes all the most common ingredients found in both antique cookbooks and farm gardens. A little paprika can be sprinkled on top before serving, or a few chopped, fresh herbs (parsley for color, or a little thyme)—or just dig in.
1/2 pound salt pork, diced
1/2 large yellow onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
2–3 celery ribs, chopped (about 1 cup)
1 small green pepper, chopped (a little more than 1/2 cup)
2 medium red potatoes, chopped (should be about 2 cups)
2 cups water
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
3 Tbs. flour
2 bay leaves
3 cups whole milk
3 cups corn kernels (if using frozen, should be completely thawed)
In a 3-quart or larger pot, cook the salt pork until it’s crisp and golden. Stir in the onion and celery, and cook until they’re tender but not browned. Add the green pepper, potato, water, bay leaves, and black pepper. (Because of the salt in the salt pork, you probably won’t need additional salt.) Stir to combine, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Then test a piece of potato—it should be tender, but not falling apart.
Blend the flour into 1/2 cup of the milk, making sure there are no lumps. Warm the rest of the milk, and then add the milk/flour mixture to the warmed milk. Add the warmed milk to the hot soup. Stir over medium heat until the soup thickens. Add the corn and cook until corn is tender, about four minutes. Taste for seasoning, and adjust if needed. Enjoy. Serves 10–12.
Cornbread was, and is, among the most widespread of cornmeal applications. Most Americans have at least tried cornbread, and nearly everyone loves it. Its forms are varied and numerous, and some predate European arrival on the continent. Regional differences can become points of fairly heated discussions (should a cornbread recipe include sugar?), but often, these variations just add interest.
Almost no one knows more about cornbread than Crescent Dragonwagon. Crescent (née Ellen Zolotow) is a remarkably energetic woman and prolific writer. I met her several years ago, at a conference for the International Association of Culinary Professionals, where she invited me to come and see her play Until Just Moistened: A One-Woman Show, with Crumbs. The play uses the making of cornbread as a uniting theme, as the narrative ranges across centuries and miles, interweaving memoir and personal observations with history and world events. Crescent, however, doesn’t just write plays—she cooks (well enough to be invited to prepare brunch for President Bill Clinton’s Inaugural)—and writes cookbooks. Cornbread appears in more than one of Crescent’s cookbooks, but it is the focus of The Cornbread Gospels—an entire book dedicated to the many forms cornbread has taken across our country’s history and regions.
When Crescent learned that I was working on a book about corn, she immediately offered the use of one of the cornbread recipes from The Cornbread Gospels—and I was only too delighted to accept her offer. She said the Gold and White Tasty Cornbread would be her recommendation, as it reminded her of a time she was regularly buying five-pound bags of stone-ground cornmeal from Hodgson Mills, a 125-year-old family-owned mill in southern Illinois. She purchased both their yellow and their white stone-ground cornmeal and notes that she likes the white meal in this recipe, but that either will do. I have, of course, made this recipe by now, though I used yellow cornmeal, just because it’s easier to find where I shop. My verdict, as well as that of the friends to whom I have served it, is that this recipe produces a really delicious cornbread.6
From The Cornbread Gospels, by Crescent Dragonwagon
Vegetable oil cooking spray
1 cup unbleached white flour
1½ cups stone-ground white cornmeal
1/4 cup sugar
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk
3 tablespoons mild vegetable oil
1/2 cup canned creamed corn
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray a 9-inch square baking pan with oil, and set aside.
2. Combine the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.
3. Break the egg into a second medium bowl, and whisk it well. Whisk in the buttermilk, vegetable oil, and creamed corn.
4. Combine the wet and dry ingredients with as few strokes as possible, and scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Bake until golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes.
Canned corn may sound less interesting to us today than fresh corn from the farmers’ market, but back when canning first got started, it was the future. A more recent parallel of this enthusiasm would be all the excitement about food paste in tubes at the beginning of the space program. Imagine, maybe someday people will get all the nutrients they need in a pill. To be honest, canned corn is much tastier and more useful than the food pastes developed for the astronauts. And while “astronaut food” pretty much appears now only in the gift shops of science museums (usually dried ice cream in foil packets), canned corn is still readily available.
Of course, back in the 1800s, canned corn was more than just modern. It had the advantage of being preserved without the lady or ladies of the house having to do all the work—because “canning” in those days meant putting up in jars a huge amount of produce every year, to see the family through the winter. So it wasn’t simply that people were dazzled by the cutting-edge technology involved. It was also that they were dazzled with not having to spend endless summer and autumn hours over boiling pots.
The following recipe was altered in the early 1900s to take advantage of those time-saving canned foods. My friend Bev Wyman, who grew up on an Illinois farm in the years following World War II, inherited this from her mother-in-law, Ruth, who got it from her mother. It was Ruth who switched from corn put up at home to the canned variety. Ruth’s husband died when the youngest of their five children was just five years old, so, despite being a well-read and very proper woman, she went to work cleaning people’s houses. So it’s easy to understand why she’d want to take advantage of the convenience of canned foods. In addition to being comfortingly yummy, this dish is economical—and kid friendly. When her children were grown, Ruth carefully wrote out longhand this favorite family recipe to pass along to her daughters and daughters-in-law, including Bev, who shared it with me.
The recipe is thickened with crackers, which might seem a little unusual today, but crackers were a common ingredient in recipes in less settled areas, especially before shipping methods were sped up by trains. Flour could be buggy by the time it arrived after weeks on an overland trail, but crackers, having been baked, would hold up better and could be used in place of flour to thicken soups, stews, or casseroles. Even when flour was purchased by homemakers, in the days before refrigeration was widely available, it was often made into crackers, once again, to reduce the likelihood of ending up with buggy flour. Crackers also offered the benefit of adding a bit more flavor than plain flour would. So this recipe reflects not only one family’s history, but also long-standing traditions of the rural Midwest.7
2 cans of cream-style corn (14.75-ounce cans)
1 cup whole milk
2 cups cracker crumbs (crush 1 sleeve from a 1 lb. box of saltines for 2 cups)
1 average-sized yellow onion, chopped (1 slightly generous cup)
4 Tbs. of butter, melted
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 2-quart casserole dish.
Mix together the corn and milk. Add the cracker crumbs. Stir in the chopped onion and melted butter. Mix well. Scrape into the prepared casserole dish. Bake in the middle of the oven for one hour.
This is a recipe so simple it almost isn’t a recipe. It reflects the southern influence in some parts of the Midwest. All you really need are butter and sweet corn kernels, a dash of black pepper, and maybe a little salt. Melt a couple of tablespoons of butter in a frying pan, add 2 or 3 cups corn kernels (fresh, frozen/thawed, or canned/drained all work here), and then fry the corn, stirring occasionally, until it starts to get brown and caramelized. (Not all brown, but at least half brown.) Taste, and season if needed. (If you use salted butter, and especially if you used canned corn, this may not need salt, but a little black pepper is always good with sweet corn.) This is remarkably tasty.
Before C. C. Cretors gave the world hot buttered popcorn in 1893, people were popping their corn in embers or wire baskets. That meant the corn was dry and usually needed help. Popcorn was often used as croutons in soup or salads, or it was crushed and used as cereal with milk. However, the most popular treat was to add sticky, sweet syrup, usually made from sugar and/or corn syrup, and form the popcorn into balls. This was done on a large scale at fairs or for commercial sales. It was this tradition that led to the creation of the classic confection Cracker Jack. But it could also easily be done at home. Chef Michael Maddox loves the memory of making popcorn balls with his great-grandmother Gladys. Here he shares her recipe for this once common treat.
2½ quarts of popped popcorn
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup white corn syrup
1 tsp. vinegar
1 tsp. vanilla
Put popcorn in a large bowl. Mix sugar, water, corn syrup, vinegar, and salt in a saucepan. Cook to 250 F degrees, or until a few drops form a hard ball when dropped into cold water. Remove from heat.
Stir vanilla into syrup. Pour in a thin stream over popcorn, stirring constantly to mix well. With buttered hands, shape into balls. Cool. Wrap in plastic wrap and tie together with yarn.
Makes about 12 balls.
Corn kernels, cornmeal, and popcorn were not the only forms of corn to appear in recipes. Cornstarch became a very important ingredient, as well, once it became widely available in the mid-1800s. When thinking of cornstarch on the menu, most people think first of thickening sauces. Cornstarch is good for that, with about twice the thickening ability of wheat flour, but it can do more than smooth out one’s gravy. This humble ingredient became a key element in cooking, and cookbooks from the 1860s well into the 1900s featured numerous recipes that used cornstarch, including cornstarch pies, cornstarch cakes, and cornstarch puddings.
Many of those recipes have remained in the families that first collected them. The Greater Midwest Foodways Alliance has an annual competition at state fairs across the region, and recently an entrant gained honorable mention with a silky, flavorful cornstarch pudding. While the recipe had been passed through her family for more than one hundred years, the woman who entered the contest acknowledged that the original recipe came from a package of Argo Corn Starch. (Note that spelling variations reflect venerable brand name versus current usage. Argo Corn Starch is a brand of cornstarch.) While the pudding was originally prepared over a wood-burning stove, it lives on in the modern kitchen. Fortunately, the original cornstarch companies, Kingsford’s and Argo, are both still around, now owned by ACH Food. The company graciously supplied this updated version of that vintage Argo recipe.
3½ cups milk, divided
6 tablespoons Argo or Kingsford’s Corn Starch
2 egg yolks
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon Spice Islands 100% Pure Vanilla Extract
Mix 1/2 cup cold milk with cornstarch. Set aside. Heat remaining 3 cups of milk in a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat until milk just begins to simmer (small bubbles around the edge of the pan).
While milk is heating, beat the egg yolks with a whisk or fork in a small bowl. Add salt and sugar to the eggs, then add egg mixture to the cornstarch mixture.
When milk is simmering, stir in the cornstarch mixture. Cook, stirring constantly, for 1 to 2 minutes, until mixture thickens. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
Pour pudding into a serving bowl (or individual bowls); cover with plastic wrap. Chill at least 1 hour before serving.
Serves 4.8
There are hundreds if not thousands more recipes, historic and modern, for sweet corn, cornmeal, and cornstarch. However, the recipes here are a good starting place, for both historic research and culinary experimentation. If you want more, an immense number of resources can help you expand your corn repertoire. The antique cookbooks I used for research (listed in the bibliography) are almost all available online. Crescent Dragonwagon’s The Cornbread Gospels is an excellent collection. Any cookbook with the word Farm or Midwest in the title will have abundant corn recipes, and there are even books out there offering nothing but recipes for sweet corn. Then, of course, multitudes of ethnic recipes employ corn.
Corn is a wholesome and versatile whole grain that has been a key part of life in the Americas for millennia. By cooking with corn, you are participating in a rich culinary and cultural history. And it’s mighty tasty, to boot.