Corn Oysters
2 cups green corn pulp 2 eggs pepper and cayenne 1 tablespoon butter, melted 1 teaspoon salt flour Cut the corn through the kernel with a sharp knife and remove pulp; add remaining ingredients with enough flour to shape into small cakes. Sauté in butter or pork fat or fry in deep fat.
A fresh-corn fritter batter held together with egg and just enough flour. The whole dish depends on the state of the corn and on restraint with the flour.
- "Green corn" means fresh sweet cornNot a green-colored variety, but corn picked at the milky stage, before the kernels harden into field corn. Any fresh sweet corn works; frozen kernels are a poor substitute, since they come off the cob whole rather than as pulp and much of the starchy liquid that binds the cakes is lost.
- Cutting through the kernelRun a sharp knife down each row to split the kernels, then scrape the cob with the back of the blade to press out the pulp and milk. Cutting the kernels off whole gives a loose, watery mix that will not hold a cake.
- How much cornTwo cups of pulp takes roughly six to eight medium ears, depending on size and how thoroughly you scrape.
- The flour is deliberately unmeasuredThe flour is unmeasured -- The original gives no quantity, and corn varies in moisture from ear to ear. Start with about a quarter cup, stir, and add a spoonful at a time only until the mixture holds a shape on the spoon. Too much flour turns these from corn cakes into pancakes.
- Modern corn is sweeter and wetterModern corn may be sweeter -- Today's supersweet hybrids hold more sugar than the varieties available in 1907, so you may need a little more flour, and the extra sugar can brown the cakes faster in the pan.
- Fat and temperatureFor deep frying, hold the fat at 365-375F; the cakes are small and cook through in two to three minutes. Sautéed in butter, keep the heat at medium, as butter over a hot pan will color before the centers set.
- CayenneAn eighth of a teaspoon is plenty alongside the black pepper. The point is a faint heat behind the sweetness, not a spiced fritter.
- Yield and servingAbout eighteen to twenty small cakes, serving four as an entrée or six as a side. They are best straight from the fat; they soften quickly as they sit.
Corn oysters get their name from appearance and size rather than from any seafood in the pan: dropped by the spoonful into hot fat, the small ragged cakes were thought to resemble fried oysters, and they are often said to have served as a mock or economical stand-in when oysters were out of season or out of reach. Recipes under the name appear across American household manuals from the mid-1800s onward, usually built the same way, with grated or scraped green corn, egg, and a minimum of flour. Lowney's Cook Book was published by the Walter M. Lowney Company, a Boston chocolate manufacturer, and like other company cookbooks of the period it surrounded its promotional chocolate recipes with a full complement of ordinary household cooking such as this.