Home › Village Receipts › Nut Loaf
Nut Loaf
One cup finely chopped nuts (preferably English walnuts), one cup cracker crumbs, one cup milk (or milk and water), one egg; steam or bake about twenty minutes.
Green Corn Nut Loaf. -Add to above one cup corn (fresh or canned).
— Mrs. Edith Cornwall Westworth
A short, loosely written receipt of the kind that assumes the cook already knows what a loaf should look like. Two things need attention: the seasoning, which is missing entirely, and the timing, which is optimistic.
- Cracker crumbsThis most likely means plain soda crackers, rolled fine; it takes a couple of dozen saltines to yield a cup of fine crumbs. Modern seasoned crumbs or panko will change both the salt level and the texture; unsalted matzo or saltines are the closest match.
- Season it yourselfThe original lists no salt, pepper or aromatics. Without at least a teaspoon of salt, some pepper and a little grated onion or sage, the loaf tastes of wet cracker.
- Twenty minutes is shortA cup of milk to a cup of crumbs and one egg is a slack mixture, closer to a pudding batter than a firm loaf. In a small loaf pan at 350F it needs 40 to 50 minutes to set through; test that the center is firm rather than trusting the clock.
- SteamingTo steam, pack the mixture into a greased mold or pudding basin, cover tightly with foil or a cloth, and set it on a rack in an inch or two of simmering water. Steamed, it stays pale and soft — the baked version browns and slices better.
- Let the crumbs swellStand the crumbs in the milk for ten minutes before adding the egg and nuts. Mixing and baking immediately leaves gritty crumb and a loaf that weeps liquid.
- Green corn"Green corn" is fresh sweet corn cut from the cob at the milk stage, not a green-colored variety. Canned corn works as the receipt allows; drain it well or the loaf will not set.
- Yield and servingThis makes about four modest servings and reads as a main dish; a tomato sauce, brown gravy or cream sauce suits it. Cold leftovers slice more cleanly than the hot loaf.
Nut loaves like this one belong to the wave of meatless cookery that spread through American households around 1900, pushed along by vegetarian reform movements and Seventh-day Adventist food writers. The formula is often much the same — a starch to bind, milk and egg to hold it together — and English walnuts, meaning the common thin-shelled Persian walnut rather than the native black walnut, were the preferred choice because their flavor is milder. In a community collection such as this one, the contributor's name attached to the receipt mattered as much as the method: these books were fundraisers and social documents. The "Green Corn" variant tacked on at the end reflects how such receipts actually circulated, as a base to be adjusted with whatever the garden was giving that week.