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Southern Sweet Potatoes
1 quart sliced, cooked sweet 2 tablespoons Mazola potatoes 3/4 cup Karo, Blue or Orange Label 3 tablespoons Argo or Kingsford's Cornstarch 1 teaspoon salt Cinnamon Oil a baking dish with Mazola. Put in a layer of potatoes, sprinkle with cornstarch, salt and cinnamon, put on a second layer and continue until there are three layers in the dish. Pour in the Karo combined with one and one half cups boiling water and the Mazola and bake thirty-five minutes in a moderate oven.
A candied sweet potato casserole from a corn-products advertising booklet, which is why every branded ingredient in it belongs to the same company. The method is sound; the measurements need translating.
- Moderate ovenBake at 350F. Thirty-five minutes is enough only because the potatoes are already cooked; the time is for setting the syrup, not for softening the vegetable.
- A quart of sliced potatoesRoughly 1 1/2 to 2 lb of sweet potatoes before peeling, perhaps four medium ones. Boil or steam them whole in their skins until just barely tender, then peel and slice about 1/2 inch thick, or they will collapse in the dish.
- MazolaPlain corn oil. Any neutral oil works; melted butter gives a better flavour here.
- Karo labelsKaro was sold in grades identified by the colour of the label, from pale crystal-white through darker, more molasses-like syrups. Light corn syrup is the safe modern reading; a dark syrup will give a heavier, almost treacly result.
- Argo and Kingsford'sTwo brand names for ordinary cornstarch, both owned by the same refiner as Karo and Mazola. Three tablespoons is the whole amount, divided across the layers.
- The hinge: scatter the starch thinlyDry cornstarch dropped in a heap will bake into pale lumps. Sift or sprinkle it in a fine, even film over each layer so the syrup and water can hydrate it as they seep down.
- The liquid3/4 cup syrup plus 1 1/2 cups boiling water looks alarmingly thin going in. It thickens as the starch sets; do not reduce it, and do not stir the dish once assembled.
- Salt and cinnamonOne teaspoon of salt is for the entire dish, split between three layers. Cinnamon is left to the cook: about 1/2 teaspoon total suits most palates.
- YieldProbably serves about six as a side dish. Let it stand ten minutes out of the oven so the glaze firms up enough to serve in squares.
This comes from one of the recipe booklets published by the makers of Karo, Argo, Kingsford's and Mazola, all products of the same American corn-milling business. Such booklets were given away by the thousand in the early twentieth century, and their purpose is visible in every line: each recipe uses as many of the company's brands as can be worked in, which is why a simple candied sweet potato dish is thickened with cornstarch and sweetened with corn syrup rather than the brown sugar and butter a Southern household cook would more likely have used. Candied sweet potatoes themselves are much older than the booklet and are generally traced to the Southern states, where the sweet potato was a year-round staple and molasses or cane syrup the usual glaze. Corn syrup, cheap and shelf-stable after the refining advances of the late nineteenth century, was marketed hard as the modern replacement for both.