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Corn Meal Mush with Cheese
For this dish yellow corn meal is usually used. For a mush made with one cup of yellow corn meal the usual allowance is one-half cup, or two ounces, of grated cheese. There is, however, no limit to the amount of cheese which can be added, and the addition of cheese tends not only to make a highly nitrogenous and nourishing dish, but also to make a dish which can be eaten without the addition of butter and cream. Like the ordinary corn meal mush, it is often fried either in deep fat, after having been crumbed, or in a small amount of fat.
The book assumes you already know how to make plain corn meal mush and gives only the cheese proportion, so the working details have to be filled in.
- The base the recipe leaves outPeriod mush is commonly something like 1 cup corn meal to 4 cups salted water, the meal stirred into boiling water or slaked first in a little cold water to prevent lumps. Directions vary: anywhere from about half an hour over low heat to an hour or more in a double boiler, stirred often, until it pulls away from the pan.
- When to add the cheeseStir the grated cheese in off the heat, or at least with the pan pulled to the side. Held at a hard boil, cheese in a starchy porridge separates and turns stringy and greasy.
- "Highly nitrogenous"Period shorthand for high in protein. Nitrogen content was the standard laboratory proxy for protein, which is why the phrase turns up constantly in meat-substitute chapters.
- Which cheeseThe book does not specify; a firm American factory cheese of the sort now called cheddar is the likely intention. The recipe itself equates two ounces grated with one-half cup.
- Chilling before fryingMush must be poured into a loaf pan or shallow dish and chilled until firm, several hours or overnight, before it can be sliced and fried.
- FryingDeep fat should be 365F; the crumbed slices need only 2-3 minutes to color. In a skillet, use a thin film of fat over medium heat and leave the slices alone until a crust forms, or they tear.
- YieldOne cup of meal makes about four cups of cooked mush, enough for four as a supper dish or six as a side.
Meatless Cookery belongs to the moment when American home economists were pressed to show that families could meet their protein needs without meat, and cheese was central to that argument: cheap, keeping well, and measurable in the nitrogen terms nutrition science of the day preferred. Corn meal mush itself is far older, descended from Native American boiled ground maize adopted by colonists and eaten across the country under many names, with fried mush a common second-day treatment. What marks this entry as of its period is the framing: the cheese is defended not for flavor but because it lets the dish stand without butter and cream.