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Quick Corn Fritters
2 Cupfuls Canned, or Leftover Creamed Corn Few Grains Pepper 1/2 Teaspoonful. Salt ¾ Teaspoonful Baking Soda Sifted Dry Bread Crumbs 2 Eggs Snowdrift Beat the eggs, add the corn, the seasonings, the soda-dissolved in a few drops of warm water-and dry bread crumbs in sufficient quantity to make the mixture barely hold its shape when dropped from the tip of a spoon. Oil a hot griddle, or frying-pan, well with Snowdrift and drop the mixture onto it by generous teaspoonfuls. Turn when browned on one side, to cook on the other, drain on crumpled paper and serve at once.
A pan fritter rather than a deep-fried one, built to use up leftover creamed corn. The mixture is bound by feel, so the crumb quantity is deliberately left open.
- SnowdriftA brand of hydrogenated vegetable shortening sold by the Southern Cotton Oil Company, the reason this book exists. Any solid shortening works, as does butter or a neutral oil for greasing the pan.
- Creamed cornCanned cream-style corn is still sold and is what the recipe assumes. If you are using leftover creamed corn from the table it will be looser, so expect to need more crumbs.
- The baking sodaThe printed page gives three-quarters of a teaspoonful of soda, as our text now reads. That is generous for this quantity, and around a quarter teaspoon will do if you would rather not risk a soda taste. Dissolving it in a few drops of warm water, as directed, keeps it from streaking the batter.
- Judging the batterThis is the hinge. Add sifted dry crumbs a spoonful at a time until a teaspoonful holds a soft mound rather than spreading; too loose and the fritters break when turned, too stiff and they are dense. The recipe deliberately gives no quantity, so go by the spoon rather than by measure.
- Griddle heatModerate. The recipe says only "hot," but too high a heat browns the outside before the egg sets in the middle.
- Draining"Crumpled paper" means paper for absorbing fat, now paper towel. Keep the fritters in a single layer so the crust does not steam.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; dropped by generous teaspoonfuls, two cupfuls of corn plus eggs and crumbs will make a sizeable platter of small fritters, enough to serve several people as a side dish.
A New Snowdrift Cook Book belongs to a genre of early twentieth-century promotional cookery: a manufacturer of hydrogenated shortening printing a full book of recipes in which its own product recurs throughout, whether or not the dish needs it. Corn fritters themselves are older and native to American cooking, and this version shows the thrift habit clearly, being pitched at cooks with a bowl of yesterday's creamed corn to account for. The use of dry bread crumbs rather than flour as the binder gives a coarser, less pasty result.