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CORN MEAL MUSH, OR HASTY PUDDING I QUART BOILING WATER I TEASPOON SALT I CUP YELLOW CORN MEAL Add salt to boiling water, then sprinkle in about 1 cup corn meal so slowly that it does not lump, stirring constantly. Continue to stir until it thickens and finish cooking over reduced heat, stirring often; or set in a double boiler.
Cornmeal developes its best flavor thus, by being dropped directly into boiling water. If mixed with a little cold water first, as given in many recipes, just to save the trouble of stirring out any possible lumps, neither the texture nor the taste is as good.
This is the same mush that we usually eat at home as a breakfast cereal, with milk and sugar. Of course we also let it cool, slice and fry it, and serve it with syrup or gravy. But we seldom mix anything piquant with it, while the French, Spaniards and other Europeans, fix cornmeal mush in a number of delicious ways and eat it almost as commonly as the Italians, who call it polenta, and with whom it is often the main dish of the evening meal. So let us adapt some of their swell kitchen recipes to outdoor and camp use.
A plain 4:1 water-to-meal mush, and the note about adding dry meal straight to boiling water is the whole point of the recipe.
- The hingeRain the meal in a thin stream with the water at a full boil and the spoon moving without pause. Slurrying the meal in cold water first is easier but gives a pastier texture and a flatter corn flavor, which is exactly what the author is arguing against.
- Ratio and yieldOne quart water to one cup meal gives about four servings of soft breakfast mush. The author says this same mush is what gets cooled, sliced and fried; if you want it firmer for slicing, either cook it down longer or work up toward 1 1/4-1 1/2 cups meal to the quart.
- Cooking timeIt thickens in a few minutes but tastes raw and gritty until the starch is fully hydrated. Twenty to thirty minutes over low heat, or 45 minutes in a double boiler, is not too much; stir every few minutes to keep the bottom from catching.
- Yellow corn mealSupermarket meal today is usually degerminated and finer than coarser whole stone-ground meal. Coarser meal takes longer to cook and may want a little more water, so hold back some meal and judge by consistency rather than filling the cup blind.
- Over a fireMush scorches instantly on a hot spot. Use a heavy pot, keep it to the side of the coals rather than over the flame, and expect to move it repeatedly; a double boiler improvised from a smaller pot in a larger one of water is the safest arrangement in camp.
- For fryingPour the finished mush into a loaf pan or any straight-sided vessel, chill until firm (several hours, or overnight), then turn out and slice about 1/2 inch thick. Dry the slices on a towel before they go into the fat or they will spit and stick.