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Escalloped Corn
Butter a baking-dish and put in a layer of cracker crumbs, then a layer of canned corn, with salt and bits of butter; alternate the crackers and corn to the top of the dish, finishing with crackers. Pour in enough milk to come to the top; bake three-quarters of an hour.
A plain scalloped corn of the sort that turned up whenever the garden was out of season. The original assumes you know the oven and the dish; here are the numbers it leaves out.
- Oven temperatureNo heat is given. A moderate oven, 350F, suits the stated 45 minutes; the custard sets gently and the cracker top browns without scorching.
- Dish and yieldA 1 1/2- to 2-quart baking dish gives about four layers and serves six as a side. Two 15-oz cans of corn, drained, and roughly 2 cups of coarse cracker crumbs fill it.
- CrackersPeriod "crackers" here means plain soda or water crackers, unsalted or lightly salted. Modern saltines work, but cut back the added salt; unsalted crackers are the closer match.
- The milk"Enough milk to come to the top" is not a fixed measure; for a 2-quart dish expect somewhere upward of 1 1/2 cups, added until it reaches the top layer. Pour it slowly at the side and let it settle before adding more, or the crumbs float and the top layer stays dry.
- Canned cornNineteenth-century canned corn was packed in its own starchy liquor and tended to be softer than most of today's whole-kernel corn, though modern varieties are if anything sweeter. Drain modern cans but reserve a few tablespoons of the liquid to add with the milk for body.
- ButterAbout 3 tablespoons total, dotted over the corn layers, with a little on the final crumb layer so it browns.
- CoveringThe recipe says nothing about covering. Baking covered for the first 30 minutes and uncovering for the last 15 lets the top crisp without risking it darkening before the interior sets.
- DonenessThe centre should be set and barely trembling, not soupy. Let it stand 10 minutes before serving so the milk finishes soaking into the crumbs.
- SeasoningSalt only is called for. Pepper, a grating of onion, or a pinch of sugar if the corn is bland would not be out of place, though the recipe itself calls for none of them.
Escalloped, or scalloped, dishes are traditionally said to take their name from baking or serving food in a scallop shell, and by the nineteenth century the word had come to mean anything layered with crumbs and milk and baked. Corn prepared this way was common in American cookery once commercial canning made sweet corn a year-round ingredient; canned corn was among the earliest and most successful vegetable packs in the United States, and household books of the 1880s onward treat a can of corn as an ordinary pantry item rather than a novelty. Soda crackers were cheap, kept well, and served as both thickener and topping.