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Corn Oysters
2 cups corn pulp
2 tablespoons butter or other
2 eggs fat
2 tablespoons flour
Salt and pepper
If fresh corn is used, grate it from the cob with a coarse grater. If canned corn is used, select one of the sieved varieties. Beat the egg-yolks and whites separately and add to the grated corn, with flour and butter or fat, salt and pepper. Drop the batter from a spoon into hot fat and fry light brown. Drain on soft paper. Serve hot.
A plain corn fritter batter that depends almost entirely on the corn itself, since two tablespoons of flour will not hold anything together on its own. Handle the egg whites correctly and the rest is straightforward.
- Fold the whites in lastThe recipe says to beat yolks and whites separately, and this is the hinge. Stir the yolks, flour, fat and seasoning into the corn first, then fold the stiff whites through at the end so the fritters puff instead of sitting flat and dense in the fat.
- What "corn pulp" meansNot whole kernels. Split the rows with a knife tip and scrape the cob with the back of the blade, or use a coarse grater as directed, so you collect the starchy interior and milk and leave the tough hulls behind. Roughly 5 to 6 medium ears gives 2 cups.
- "Sieved varieties" of canned cornMost likely the period's way of pointing at a pureed rather than whole-kernel pack, closest today to cream-style corn. Drain off any watery liquid before measuring, or the batter will spread and absorb grease.
- Fat temperatureThe recipe says only "hot fat." The usual modern range for fritters, roughly 365 to 375F, works well: below that they soak; much above and the outside colors before the egg and corn set.
- Deep or shallowThe recipe does not say how deep the fat should be. A shallow pan, about half an inch, works if you turn each fritter once; deep fat needs no turning and colors more evenly.
- SeasoningNo quantities are given. About 3/4 teaspoon salt and a few grinds of pepper for the full batch is a reasonable starting point; fry one fritter and taste before committing the rest.
- Yield and servingMakes roughly 16 to 18 small fritters, enough for four as a side dish. Often served alongside chicken; some cooks eat corn fritters with syrup.
The name is generally traced to a straightforward piece of nineteenth-century American kitchen shorthand: dropped from a spoon into hot fat, the small ragged fritters are often said to take on the shape and browned edges of a fried oyster. Recipes titled "corn oysters" or "mock oysters" appear in American collections from the mid-1800s onward, and the same trick of naming a vegetable dish after a shellfish shows up in mock oyster soup made with salsify, a root often said to carry an oyster-like flavor. That this one sits in the Vegetables section of a Butterick household book, alongside instructions for grating corn from the cob, places it in the era when fresh sweet corn was a brief summer event and canned corn stood in for it the rest of the year -- hence the author's careful note about which style of can to buy.