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Canned Peach Pudding
One-half can of peaches will be sufficient. To 3/4 of a cupful of the peach syrup add 1¼ cupfuls of boiling water, 2 ounces of fine hominy and a pinch of salt and cook at the side of the fire, stirring frequently until the hominy is tender.
As it swells and thickens it may be wise to use a double boiler to keep from burning. Add 6 peach halves cut fine and cook fifteen minutes longer; if not sufficiently sweet add more sugar.
Turn into a large mold. Serve very cold with cream.
A molded cereal pudding of the sort that turned a half-used can of fruit into a cold dessert. It sets on starch alone, with no eggs or gelatin, so the grain-to-liquid ratio does the work.
- The ambiguous measurement"1/4 cupfuls of boiling water" may be a typesetting slip for 1 1/4 cupfuls; the plural is suggestive, and 1 cup of total liquid is on the low side for 2 ounces of hominy. Add more hot water if the grain is still firm.
- Fine hominyThis means fine-ground hominy grits, not the whole nixtamalized kernels sold in cans as hominy or pozole. Two ounces by weight is roughly a third of a cup. Quick grits will cook faster; instant grits will turn to paste.
- Side of the fireOn a range, the coolest zone of the stovetop — a bare simmer over low heat. The instruction to switch to a double boiler once it thickens is sound; grits scorch on the bottom the moment they stiffen.
- Canned peaches nowPeriod cans were commonly packed in heavy syrup, which is why the syrup does most of the sweetening here. Fruit packed in juice or light syrup will need sugar added, as the recipe allows -- start with 2 tablespoons and taste while hot.
- Cooking timeExpect 20 to 30 minutes before the grits are tender, plus the final 15 minutes with the fruit. The finished mixture should mound thickly on a spoon, or it will slump when unmolded.
- MoldingRinse the mold with cold water before filling so the pudding releases. Chill at least four hours, preferably overnight; the starch needs time to set firm enough to turn out.
- Yield and servingHalf a standard can of peaches and 2 ounces of grits give four modest servings. Cold cream poured over is the intended finish — unwhipped heavy cream or half-and-half, not whipped.
Cereal puddings set in a mold and served cold were the backbone of cheap Victorian and Edwardian dessert cookery: cornstarch blancmange, rice pudding, farina moulds, and this hominy version all rely on starch gelatinization rather than eggs, cream or gelatin, all of which cost money. Hominy grits, being ground from hulled corn, were among the cheapest grains available in American groceries, and the frugal turn here is the syrup — the sugar-heavy packing liquid becomes both the sweetener and most of the cooking liquid. The recipe calls for only half a can.