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Mock Oysters
These are made of corn, which must be young and tender. They taste very much like fried oysters: Grate from the cob with a coarse grater into a batter dish and allow one egg to one-half pint of pulp. Beat the yolks and whites separately and add to the grated corn, together with one tablespoon of wheat flour, one of butter, a teaspoon of salt and pepper, as desired. Drop spoons of the batter into hot butter and lard mixed, and fry light brown.
CORN PUDDING, -Chop one can or ten ears of lightly-boiled green corn until each kernel has been divided into about four pieces; add one heaping teaspoon of sugar; a level teaspoon of salt; a saltspoon of white pepper; a pint of milk; a tablespoon of melted butter and three beaten eggs. Mix all well together, pour the preparation into a buttered dish that can go to the table, cover, and bake in a moderate oven for about forty minutes, taking off the cover ten minutes before removing from the oven. CORN (Green, Stewed) -Husk, and boil for ten minutes. As soon as it has cooled enough to handle, draw a sharp knife down each row of kernels, press the pulp from the hulls with the back of the knife, place it in a stewpan, and to every pint add one-half teaspoon of salt, one-half teaspoon of sugar, one-fourth teaspoon of pepper, one tablespoon of butter and three-fourths cup of cream or milk. Let the whole simmer for ten minutes, and serve very hot. Any corn that may be left over from some other meal may be cut from the cob and cooked in this way.
Three corn dishes run together in one entry. The first, the mock oysters proper, is a corn fritter thin enough to spread in the fat, which is what gives it the ragged edges and the oyster-like look.
- The grating is the whole pointGrate the ears on a coarse grater or score the rows and press the pulp out with the back of a knife, so you get milky pulp and broken kernels rather than whole ones. Cut kernels give you corn cakes; crushed pulp is what sets the batter and makes it taste of something other than corn.
- MeasuresHalf a pint of pulp is one cup, which is roughly two to four medium ears. A saltspoon in the corn pudding is about a quarter teaspoon. "One tablespoon of wheat flour" is probably specified to distinguish it from Indian meal (cornmeal), which was also in common kitchen use.
- Corn to useField corn bred for starch will be doughy. Use ordinary sweet corn, as fresh as you can get it; the sugars begin converting to starch within hours of picking, which is why the original insists on young and tender.
- Frying fatButter and lard mixed gave lard's higher smoke point with butter's flavor. A neutral oil with a spoon of butter added does the same job. Keep the fat hot but not smoking, and fry in batches so the pan does not cool.
- Moderate ovenFor the corn pudding, read "moderate" as 350F. Forty minutes covered plus ten uncovered is about right for a shallow dish; a deep one will want longer, and the custard is done when a knife comes out clean and the center no longer trembles.
- Canned corn in the puddingThe instruction to chop one can or ten ears applies to corn already lightly boiled, so drain canned corn well before chopping or the pudding will weep. Ten ears yields considerably more corn than a modern can; period cans were larger, and you will need two or more of today's to match.
- Stewed corn timingTen minutes of boiling on the cob, then ten more simmering in cream, is far more than fresh corn needs and will flatten it. The method makes better sense with older, starchier late-season ears, which is likely what the entry assumes.
- YieldThe fritter batter as given makes about a dozen small fritters, enough for three or four as a side. The pudding serves six.
"Mock" dishes fill a good deal of nineteenth-century American cookery — mock turtle, mock duck, mock mince — and they work in two directions: sometimes standing in for something expensive, sometimes flattering a cheap ingredient by comparison with a dear one. Oysters were the reference point because they were then genuinely cheap and eaten everywhere, so the comparison told a reader exactly what texture to expect from a fried corn fritter rather than promising luxury. Corn oysters or mock oysters appear in American household books from the middle of the century onward, and the salsify root was given the same nickname (oyster plant) for the same reason.