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White or Sweet
2 Cupfuls Hot, Riced White or Sweet Potatoes 1/2 Teaspoonful Salt ¼ Teaspoonful Pepper 2 Tablespoonfuls Snowdrift 1 Egg Few Drops Onion Juice (optional) 1 Teaspoonful Minced Parsley (optional) Rich Milk to Moisten, if needed Mix together the dry ingredients, beat in the liquid gradually, and then stir in the egg yolks, beaten till lemon-colored. Add the Snowdrift and then the egg whites, beaten stiff. Then dip in the fruit, drain it for a moment, and drop each fritter into deep Snowdrift, hot enough to brown a bit of bread in a minute. When golden brown on one side, turn to brown the other. When done, drain on crumpled paper, dust with powdered sugar, and serve with or without Nutmeg or Lemon Sauce. If apples are used they should be cored and pared, then sliced in rings.
Peaches should be pared and quartered; bananas should be peeled, halved lengthwise, and then quartered.
The ingredient list is for a potato mixture; the method printed beneath it belongs to a fruit fritter recipe on the same page, and the two have been run together. Read the list as a savory potato puff or croquette batter and disregard the fruit-dipping directions.
- The printing errorNothing in the ingredient list can be dipped in fruit, dusted with powdered sugar, or served with lemon sauce. Treat the potato mixture as its own dish: bind, shape or spoon, and fry. The apple, peach and banana notes belong to a neighboring fritter formula.
- "14 Teaspoonful Pepper"A dropped fraction bar. Read it as 1/4 teaspoon.
- SnowdriftA brand of cottonseed-oil shortening sold by the Southern Cotton Oil Company. Any solid vegetable shortening substitutes directly, and butter works in the 2 tablespoons that go into the mixture; use a neutral oil for the frying.
- Riced potatoesBoiled potatoes pushed through a ricer or food mill while still hot, rather than beaten smooth. Work them as little as possible, or the starch turns gluey and the mixture will not hold a fried shape. Two cupfuls is roughly a pound or so of potatoes before cooking.
- "Rich milk"Whole milk, or milk with a little cream. Add it drop by drop and only if the riced potato is too dry to come together; a wet mixture will spread and absorb fat in the pan.
- The eggsThe yolks, beaten till lemon-colored, are stirred in first; the Snowdrift follows, and the stiff whites go in last. Fold the whites in lightly and fry without delay, before they deflate.
- Frying temperature"Hot enough to brown a bit of bread in a minute" corresponds to roughly 350-375F. Drop the mixture by rounded spoonfuls and turn when the underside is golden brown, as the recipe directs.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield or number of servings. Whatever the count, they fall quickly and should go straight from the drain paper to the table.
Snowdrift was one of the cottonseed-oil shortenings that reshaped American frying in the first decades of the twentieth century, and the little books issued under its name were advertising as much as instruction. Cottonseed had been an oil-mill byproduct before food processors learned to refine and harden it, and the promotional cookbook was the tool used to teach cooks accustomed to lard that a vegetable fat would do the same work. Potato puffs like this one, riced potato lightened with beaten egg white and fried, seem to have been common enough in the period's household manuals, a way of turning leftover boiled potatoes into something worth serving. The muddled instructions here may be a reminder of how these pamphlets were assembled: short recipes set in tight columns, with the type perhaps jumping from one to the next.