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Scalloped
2 C cooked cabbage 1 C canned corn 1 C cracker crumbs 2 pimentoes 1 egg Mrs. F. J. Wagner.
A church-supper shorthand: the ingredients and the contributor's name, with the method left to the cook's judgment. Scalloped dishes of this kind are assembled in layers, bound with egg, and baked until set and browned.
- What is missingThere is no liquid, no seasoning, no pan size and no oven instruction. As written you have five components and no binding sauce, so the dish needs milk or the corn's own packing liquid to keep it from baking dry.
- C means cupStandard abbreviation in club cookbooks of this era. Read it as the ordinary 8 fl oz cup measure.
- PimentoesCanned sweet red peppers, sold whole in small jars or tins. Two of them means two whole peppers, drained and chopped, not two teaspoons of ground pimenton or paprika.
- Cracker crumbsMost likely crushed soda crackers, saltier and coarser than modern fine dry breadcrumbs. The recipe does not say how they are used; reserving part for the top is one way to get a crust.
- Cooked cabbageTwo cups means two cups after cooking and draining, roughly a third of a medium head. Squeeze it well; wet cabbage will loosen the whole dish.
- OvenA recipe of this construction would suit a moderate oven, around 350F, until the center is set and the top browned; perhaps 30 to 40 minutes in a shallow dish, though the recipe gives no guidance. Test the middle rather than trusting the color of the crumbs.
- YieldRoughly a quart of assembled mixture, four to six side servings. Season generously with salt and pepper; cabbage, corn and egg between them contribute almost nothing.
Scalloped dishes were the workhorses of American church and lodge suppers: vegetables extended with crumbs and bound with egg or a milk sauce, baked in a dish that could sit on a long table and be spooned out without falling apart. The word is usually traced to cooking and serving in a scallop shell, though the derivation is not certain; by the late nineteenth century it was applied to more or less any layered, crumb-topped bake. The combination here belongs to the canned-goods era, when tinned corn and jarred pimentoes let a cook add sweetness and color to boiled cabbage in winter. Community cookbooks of this kind were typically compiled from recipes submitted by members, which is why so many entries give only proportions.