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Corn Oysters
Mrs. Samuel McMaster.
One pint of green grated corn, two tablespoons of milk, three eggs, two tablespoons butter; flour to make a batter, and fry on griddle with butter
A plain corn fritter batter with no salt and no stated flour quantity, so both are left to the cook. The name comes from the shape and size of the spoonfuls, not from any shellfish.
- "Green corn"Fresh sweet corn in the milk stage, not dried field corn and not a green-colored variety. One pint of grated kernels takes roughly 5 to 6 medium ears.
- Grated, not cutSplit the kernels down the rows with a knife tip and scrape the cob with the back of the blade, or run the ear over the coarse side of a box grater. The point is to release the starchy pulp, which helps bind the fritter; made with whole cut kernels they hold together less well.
- Flour to make a batterExpect about 1/3 to 1/2 cup for this quantity. You want a thick drop batter that holds a mound on the spoon, not a pourable pancake batter, or the fritters spread thin and turn leathery.
- SeasoningThe original lists none. A generous half teaspoon of salt and a few grinds of pepper for the full batch brings the corn forward; without it the fritters taste flat.
- Butter in the batterMelt and cool the two tablespoons before mixing, otherwise it seizes into lumps against the cold eggs and milk.
- Griddle heatMedium, around 350F on an electric griddle or a pan that sizzles a drop of batter without browning it in seconds. The egg-rich batter scorches before the center sets on high heat; allow 2 to 3 minutes a side.
- Size and yieldDrop by rounded tablespoon and flatten slightly. Yield depends on how heaped the spoon is; expect two dozen or more small fritters.
- ServingBest straight from the griddle. Hold finished batches on a rack in a 200F oven rather than stacking them on a plate, where steam softens the crust.
Corn oysters were a standing item in nineteenth-century American cookbooks. The name is usually explained as table poetry -- the little fried mounds were said to resemble fried oysters in size, shape and golden edge -- though this is a traditional explanation rather than a documented one, and the further idea that they served as a substitute for oysters in inland households is speculation. Sweet corn in the milk stage has a short season, and recipes like this one belong to the late-summer weeks when it was abundant. The Home Cook Book was compiled in the 1870s from contributions by named local women, which is why this appears over Mrs. Samuel McMaster's name and in her own shorthand: she assumed a reader who already knew what a batter should look like and needed only the proportions.