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Corn Oysters
Score and press the corn as directed in preceding recipe, and to every pint of pulp allow 2 eggs ½ teaspoonful of salt I dash of cayenne 2 heaping tablespoonfuls of flour I dash of black pepper add first the yolks and then Beat the eggs separately; the whites to the corn, mix gently, add the salt, cayenne, pepper and flour; mix again. Put two tablespoonfuls of lard or butter in a frying pan ; when hot, drop the mixture by spoonfuls into it; when brown on one side, turn and brown the other. Serve very hot.
A straightforward corn fritter batter, but it depends entirely on the first step, which lives in the previous recipe: the corn must be scored and pressed rather than cut off whole.
- Scoring and pressingRun a knife tip down the centre of each row of kernels, then scrape the pulp and milk out with the back of the blade, leaving the tough hulls behind on the cob. Whole cut kernels give a lumpy fritter that will not hold together the same way.
- How much cornA pint of pressed pulp takes something like 5 to 8 medium ears, depending on the variety and how thoroughly you scrape. Modern supersweet corn is juicier and sweeter than the sweet corn of the period, so the batter may run thinner; hold back some of the milk if it will not mound on a spoon.
- The garbled sentenceThe typesetting has scrambled the method. Read it as: beat the eggs separately, add the yolks to the corn, then fold in the whites, mix gently, then add salt, cayenne, pepper and flour and mix again.
- Whites lastThe beaten whites are what makes these light rather than pasty. Fold them in and cook promptly; a batter that stands loses its lift.
- FlourTwo heaping tablespoonfuls is deliberately little. Resist adding more to firm up a loose batter, or you get pancakes; a spoonful of dry breadcrumbs or a little more egg yolk is a better correction.
- The fatTwo tablespoonfuls in the pan is shallow frying, not deep. Keep the fat at a steady medium-high so the outside browns in two to three minutes a side while the egg sets through.
- YieldA pint of pulp gives about 16 to 18 fritters, enough for four as a vegetable side.
The name is the whole joke: these contain no oysters, and the name is traditionally explained by the way a spoonful of corn batter fried in fat comes out roughly the size, shape and colour of a fried oyster, though some accounts tie it instead to the fritters being served in place of oysters. Corn oysters or "mock oysters" appear across nineteenth-century American cookbooks, and are generally understood as a summer dish for the months when oysters were out of season and green corn was at its peak. The logic of hot weather cooking is everywhere here: one pan, a few minutes at the stove, and a vegetable dish substantial enough to carry a light meal without roasting anything.