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Corn Fritters
Grate six ears of corn and mix with one tablespoonful of flour, two eggs, salt and pepper to taste; drop spoonfuls in hot lard and fry like oysters till brown.
A terse turn-of-the-century fritter that depends entirely on the corn being fresh and milky. The instruction to "fry like oysters" assumes a cook who already knows what that looks like: shallow fat, hot, brief.
- Grating, not cuttingGrating the ears against a coarse box grater splits the kernels and releases the starchy milk, which is what binds the batter with only a tablespoon of flour. Whole cut kernels are much less likely to hold together with so little flour; if you use a knife, score the kernels first and scrape the cob hard.
- Six earsSix medium ears yield roughly 2 to 3 cups of grated pulp, enough for about a dozen fritters serving four. Older, starchier late-season corn gives a thicker batter; very young corn may need a second spoonful of flour.
- Fat and temperatureLard was the default; any neutral fat with a high smoke point works. Shallow-fry at 360-375F. Below that the fritters absorb fat and go greasy; the batter is loose, so drop it from a spoon and let it set before turning.
- "Fry like oysters"Most likely a shallow pan of hot fat rather than deep-frying; reckon on two to three minutes a side. Go by colour: golden brown all over means the egg has set and the corn is cooked through.
- Seasoning"Salt and pepper to taste" in a raw egg-and-corn batter is hard to judge. Start with about 3/4 teaspoon salt and a good grind of pepper, fry one fritter, taste it, and adjust the rest of the batter.
- ServingThese belong beside fried chicken, ham or a summer roast rather than as a sweet course. Drain on paper, salt lightly while hot, and serve immediately -- they slump within minutes.
Corn fritters sit at the point where an indigenous American grain met an English batter tradition, and they appear in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American cookbooks under a crowd of names -- corn oysters, green corn fritters. The comparison to oysters is the telling detail: it is often said to refer both to the frying method and to the shape and size of the finished cake, and "corn oysters" was a common title for essentially this recipe. It belongs to the brief season when sweet corn was picked and cooked the same day, since the sugars and the milky liquid that bind the batter fade quickly after harvest.