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Canned Corn Pudding
1 can corn, 1 cup hot milk, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon sugar, 1 tablespoon Crisco, 1 tablespoon flour, and 1 egg.
Melt Crisco; mix well with flour; add the milk gradually, then the seasoning and corn, and last of all beaten egg. Pour into Criscoed baking dish and bake in moderate oven for 1/2 hour.
A plain corn custard thickened with a small roux, written to sell shortening. It is straightforward, but a few of the quantities and terms need translating.
- The can of cornCanned corn of this period typically came in cans of around two to two and a half cups including the packing liquid; a modern 15-ounce can is the nearest equivalent, though slightly smaller. The recipe does not say whether to drain, and the liquid was probably included.
- Moderate ovenRoughly 350 to 375F. At half an hour a shallow dish will just be set; in a deep dish it may need 40 to 45 minutes.
- Judging donenessWith only one egg to two cups of corn and a cup of milk, this sets softly. Pull it when the centre still trembles slightly and a knife an inch from the edge comes out clean; carryover heat finishes it.
- Crisco and "Criscoed"Crisco is hydrogenated vegetable shortening, still sold. Butter works in the roux and gives better flavour. "Criscoed baking dish" simply means greased.
- Hot milkAdding hot milk to the flour-and-fat paste a little at a time is what keeps it lump-free. Cold milk will work too if you whisk, but the original's instruction is the safer route.
- Tempering the eggThe beaten egg goes in last, off the heat if the mixture is still warm. Stir a spoonful of the hot corn mixture into the egg first, or it will scramble in streaks.
- YieldServes about three to four as a side dish. If doubled in a larger dish it will need longer in the oven.
This comes from one of the recipe books published to promote Crisco, the hydrogenated cottonseed-oil shortening introduced by Procter & Gamble in 1911 -- hence the brand name appearing as both an ingredient and a verb, "Criscoed." Corn pudding itself is much older and thoroughly American, a descendant of the soft corn dishes of colonial and Native American cooking, but the version here belongs squarely to the era of the reliable tin can: it assumes a pantry shelf rather than a summer garden, and treats sweet corn as a year-round staple. A single egg is all that holds this together.