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Green Corn Patties
M.
Grate as much corn as will make one pint; one teacup flour, one teacup butter, one egg, pepper and salt to taste. If too thick, add a little milk, and fry in butter.
A corn fritter batter written in the shorthand of a contributor who assumed you already knew what a griddle cake looked like. The proportions need a second glance before you commit.
- Teacup measuresA Victorian teacup is roughly 3/4 to 1 cup; recipes of this era use it loosely. A full teacup of butter to a pint of corn is extremely rich by modern standards — closer to 2 to 4 tablespoons gives a batter that holds together and browns rather than weeping fat into the pan.
- A pint of grated cornThat is 2 cups, or the kernels from about 4 to 6 large ears. Grate the ears on a box grater or run a knife down each row and scrape the cob with the back of the blade to get the milky pulp, which is what binds these.
- "Green corn" means fresh cornNot a green variety and not immature field corn as feed — simply sweet corn at the milk stage, in season. Frozen kernels work but must be chopped or pulsed, since they lack the starchy milk that thickens the batter.
- The hinge: batter consistencyThe mixture should mound softly on a spoon and spread only slightly in the pan. Too loose and the patties tear when turned; the recipe's instruction to thin with milk is the only adjustment offered, so add it a teaspoon at a time.
- FryingMedium heat in a heavy skillet, with enough butter to film the bottom. Butter browns fast at the volume implied here — clarified butter, or butter cut with a neutral oil, keeps the patties from scorching before the interior sets, roughly 3 minutes a side.
- Yield and servingAbout a dozen patties of 2 to 3 inches, serving four as a vegetable side. They suit a plate of fried chicken or ham, and are good with nothing more than salt.
The Home Cook Book was compiled from recipes donated by local women and sold in aid of charity, which is why so many entries are signed only with an initial and written at telegraph speed — the contributor could assume her reader had made fritters before. Green corn fritters and patties appear across nineteenth-century American cookbooks in almost identical form, and fresh corn at the milk stage was a food settler cooks took up from Native American practice, as they did hominy, succotash and cornmeal breads. The dish is seasonal in a way that is easy to miss now: grated green corn was available for only a few weeks in late summer.