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Stewed Corn
Thoroughly drain a pint can corn; then place in a small frying pan with half gill milk, half gill cream and half ounce butter; season with half teaspoon salt, two saltspoons white pepper and half saltspoon grated nutmeg. Gently mix and let slowly cook for eight minutes. Remove, pour into a vegetable dish and serve.
A five-minute side dish built on canned corn, with quantities given in gills and saltspoons. The measures translate cleanly; the only real risk is scorching the dairy.
- GillsA gill is half a cup (4 fl oz), so half a gill is 2 fl oz, or 4 tablespoons (a quarter cup). The dish takes a quarter cup milk and a quarter cup cream.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. Two saltspoons of white pepper is half a teaspoon, which is assertive; half a saltspoon of nutmeg is an eighth of a teaspoon.
- Half ounce butterOne tablespoon.
- The canA pint can is roughly a modern 15-16 oz can, yielding about 10-12 oz drained corn. Drain it hard: residual packing liquid will thin the cream and leave the dish watery.
- HeatEight minutes is for a very low flame. Two tablespoons of milk over anything brisker will catch and split before the time is up; stir at intervals and pull it when the cream has just thickened around the kernels.
- White pepperProbably specified for appearance, so the pale dish stays unspeckled. Black pepper tastes fine here and only costs you the look.
- YieldServes three to four as a side. It does not hold well, as the cream tightens and the corn toughens on standing.
Canned sweet corn was one of the earliest commercially successful American canned vegetables, widespread by the second half of the nineteenth century, and it turned a strictly seasonal crop into a year-round pantry staple. The dish here is not made from fresh ears in August but dressed up with cream, butter, white pepper and nutmeg so that the tin behind it disappears. The nutmeg is the giveaway of period taste, as grated nutmeg is often said to have been an almost routine seasoning for creamed vegetables and white sauces, from spinach to bechamel.