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Baked Corn
1 can corn 1 green pepper, chopped 2 eggs 1/2 pt. milk 1 T butter 1 T sugar 1 T cornstarch Salt and pepper to taste Bake about twenty minutes. Can be made without green pepper, if desired.
A corn custard in the plainest possible terms: the book assumes you know what a pudding dish looks like and how hot your oven runs. The two things it leaves out are the temperature and a realistic time.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A moderate oven, around 350F, is the safe modern reading; an egg-and-milk custard is easily overcooked, so resist going hotter to speed things along.
- Twenty minutes is shortA cup of milk and two eggs will not set in twenty minutes in a deep dish. Expect 35-45 minutes at 350F in a buttered 1-quart dish, until the centre is just barely wobbly and a knife inserted off-centre comes out clean.
- Half a pintOne cup of milk. Whole milk gives the best set; skim makes a thin, weepy custard.
- The can of cornCanned corn of the period was typically sold in larger cans than today's standard; a modern 15-16 oz can, drained, is a reasonable substitute. Two cups of fresh kernels cut from three or four ears works and tastes better.
- T means tablespoonCapital T is generally a tablespoon in books of this kind, and lowercase t a teaspoon, though the convention was not applied consistently. Slack the cornstarch into a little of the cold milk before adding it, or it will sit in lumps.
- The green pepperRaw chopped pepper goes into a twenty-minute bake still crunchy. Sweat it in the tablespoon of butter first if you want it soft and sweet rather than green-tasting.
- YieldServes four as a side dish, six if the rest of the table is generous.
Baked corn, corn pudding, corn custard: the same dish under whichever name a given congregation used, and it is a familiar sight in American church and grange cookbooks from the 1890s onward. What makes this version distinctly of its moment is the opening line, "1 can corn." Commercially canned sweet corn was one of the earliest reliably good canned vegetables, and by the time church societies were compiling books like this one it had become a year-round pantry staple rather than a novelty, which is precisely why a recipe like this can be four lines long. The chopped green pepper is offered and then immediately made optional.