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Graham Mush
Sift meal slowly into boiling salted water, stirring briskly until it is as thick as can be stirred with one hand; serve with milk or cream and sugar, or butter and syrup. It is much improved by removing from the kettle to a pan as soon as thoroughly mixed, and steaming for three or four hours. It may also be eaten cold, or sliced and fried like corn mush .
A porridge built by feel rather than measurement, which is the one thing that needs translating. The proportions below are the standard ones for a mush of this kind.
- Graham mealCoarsely ground whole wheat flour, bran and germ included, named for Sylvester Graham. Modern stone-ground whole wheat flour is the closest match; coarse whole wheat or a whole wheat farina behaves better than fine all-purpose whole wheat, which turns pasty.
- ProportionsThe original gives none. About 1 cup graham meal to 4 cups water, with 1 teaspoon salt, produces a mush that just holds a spoon; "as thick as can be stirred with one hand" is closer to 1 to 3 and will set very firm on cooling.
- Sifting in slowlyThis is the hinge. Rain the meal into hard-boiling water in a thin stream while whisking, or it lumps instantly and no amount of later stirring will smooth it.
- The kettleA heavy pot, not a tea kettle. Whole grain mush scorches readily once thickened, so use the thickest-bottomed pan you own and keep the heat low after the initial boil.
- Three or four hours of steamingThat length probably reflects coarser period grinding and a stove that could be relied on for long, gentle heat. With modern flour, 30 to 45 minutes covered over a double boiler or on the lowest burner hydrates the bran and loses the raw flour taste.
- Serving cold and friedPour the hot mush into a loaf pan, press plastic wrap onto the surface, and chill overnight. Turn out, cut into half-inch slabs, and fry in butter or bacon fat until crusted, as with fried cornmeal mush.
- YieldOne cup of meal to four of water serves four at breakfast, or fills a small loaf pan for frying the next day.
Graham meal takes its name from Sylvester Graham, the Presbyterian minister and temperance lecturer whose 1830s campaign against refined white flour urged Americans back to coarsely ground, unbolted wheat. By the time The Dixie Cook Book appeared in the early 1880s, "graham" had shed most of its reformist zeal and become simply a grocery term for whole wheat meal, sold alongside the graham gems, graham bread and graham crackers that fill this and many another American cookbook of the period. The recipe itself is frankly derivative of cornmeal mush, and says so: same technique, same sliced-and-fried second life, same butter and syrup at table. Mush of one grain or another was, by most accounts, a common American breakfast before boxed cereal, and the note about eating it cold suggests that a morning pot might serve more than once.