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Corn a La Southern
To one can chopped corn add two eggs slightly beaten, one teaspoon salt, one-eighth teaspoon pepper, one and onehalf tablespoons melted butter, and one pint scalded milk; turn into a buttered pudding dish and bake in slow oven until firm.
A plain corn custard of the sort that filled out an early-1900s supper table. It is a baked custard first and a vegetable dish second, and it behaves like one.
- Slow ovenRead that as roughly 300-325F; period "slow" ovens are usually put somewhere between 250F and 325F. A custard pushed at higher heat is liable to weep or curdle, which is likely why the low heat is specified.
- Temper the milk"Scalded" milk means heated to just below a simmer, around 180F, with bubbles at the rim. Pour it into the beaten eggs in a thin stream while whisking, or you will scramble them before the dish reaches the oven.
- A can of chopped cornPeriod canned corn was packed soft and starchy in its own liquor. A 15-oz can of whole-kernel corn, drained and pulsed a few times, is the closest match; cream-style corn will work but makes a sweeter, looser custard.
- MeasuresOne pint of milk is 2 cups. One and a half tablespoons of butter is about 3/4 oz.
- Water bathNot called for, but setting the pudding dish in a pan of hot water gives an even set and guards against a rubbery edge. Without one, keep the dish shallow.
- Judging "firm"Expect 45 minutes to an hour in a 1 1/2-quart dish. It is done when the edges are set and the centre still shivers slightly; a knife inserted an inch from the edge comes out clean. It carries on setting as it cools.
- YieldServes four to six as a side.
Corn puddings of this kind run straight through nineteenth-century American cookery, and the "a la Southern" tag appears to be doing regional flattery rather than describing anything specifically Southern in the method: the dish is simply a savoury custard with corn in it, close kin to the corn pudding served across the eastern states. What dates the recipe is the can. By the early 1900s commercially canned sweet corn was cheap, reliable and available year-round, and a whole genre of "vegetable" recipes existed to turn a tin into something that could be carried to the table in a baking dish. Scalding is often explained as a habit carried over from the days before pasteurised milk was general, though it is also plain custard technique.