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Bina's Stewed Corn
Shave corn off the ear, being careful not to cut into the cob; to three pints corn add three table-spoons butter, pepper and salt, and just enough water to cover; place in a skillet, cover and cook rather slowly with not too hot a fire, from half to three-quarters of an hour, stir with a spoon often, and if necessary add more water, for the corn must not brown; if desired, a few moments before it is done, add half cup sweet cream thickened with teaspoon flour; boil well and serve with roast beef, escaloped tomatoes and mashed potatoes. Some stew tomatoes, and just before serving mix them with the corn.
A straightforward stewed corn that needs only two adjustments: the quantity is given by volume rather than by ear, and the cooking time belongs to a much starchier corn than anything sold today.
- Three pints of cornKernels shaved from the cob run roughly three-quarters of a cup to a cup per medium ear, so three pints (six cups) means somewhere between six and eight ears depending on size. Scraping the cobs with the back of the knife after cutting releases the milky starch that helps the stew thicken.
- The cooking timeHalf to three-quarters of an hour reflects both the corn varieties of the period and a general habit of long cooking. Modern supersweet hybrids are tender in 8 to 12 minutes and turn flat and pasty if held much longer; taste at ten minutes and stop when the kernels still have bite.
- Do not let it brownThis is the hinge of the recipe. Corn scorches easily once the water cooks away, and even light browning gives the whole pan a burnt-sugar taste. Keep the heat low, keep the lid on, and add water by the splash as needed.
- Sweet creamIn this period "sweet" simply meant not soured. Use heavy or whipping cream; half a cup whisked smooth with a teaspoon of flour is a light liaison, not a thick sauce.
- "Boil well"After the cream and flour go in, a minute or two at a simmer is enough to cook out the raw flour taste. A hard boil risks catching on the bottom of the pan.
- SkilletA wide, heavy pan with a lid — cast iron or a straight-sided sauté pan. The recipe wants the corn barely covered with water and topped up as it goes, so a broad pan that lets you watch the liquid level suits it better than a deep pot.
- Escaloped tomatoesAn older spelling of scalloped: tomatoes baked with buttered breadcrumbs. The variation at the end, corn stirred with stewed tomatoes just before serving, is the same pairing in one dish.
- YieldThree pints of kernels serves six to eight as a side dish.
Stewed corn belongs to the oldest layer of American cooking, adapted from Native practice of cooking green corn shaved from the cob, and it appears in nineteenth-century books under a variety of near-identical headings. Notable in this version is the insistence on shaving carefully and not cutting into the cob. The Dixie Cook-Book, like many compilations of the 1880s, credits individual contributors by first name, and this receipt joins other named receipts collected from household cooks. The closing suggestion of mixing in stewed tomatoes is the ancestor of the corn-and-tomato dishes still common across the South.