Cornbread

“ One noble product of nature did not refuse to flourish there,—the tall, stately, beautiful, soft-haired, many-jointed, generous maize or Indian corn, which thrives on sand and defies the blaze of our shrivelling summer. What child but loves to wander in its forest-like depths, amidst the rustling leaves and with the lofty tassels tossing their heads high above him! There are two aspects of the cornfield which always impress my imagination: the first when it has reached its full growth, and its ordered ranks look like an army on the march with its plumed and bannered battalions ”

“ Nonpareil Corn Bread.—2 heaping cups Indian corn meal, 1 cup flour, 21⁄2 cups milk, 1 tablespoon lard, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder, 1 teaspoon salt. Beat 2 eggs, whites and yolks separately. Sift together dry ingredients, melt lard. Mix all together, beat hard 1 minute, turn into greased shallow pan, and bake about 1⁄2 hour in hot oven.
Spider Corn Bread.—Beat 2 eggs with 2 tablespoons sugar. Add 1 pint milk, 1 teaspoon salt, 11⁄3 cup Indian corn meal, 1⁄3 cup flour, 1 teaspoon Royal Baking Powder. In a spider melt 2 tablespoons butter; turn so as to grease sides. ”

“ Green corn, even in city markets, is both indifferent and dear at this season. We do better, therefore, to fall back upon the invaluable canned vegetables that have made American housewives almost independent of changing seasons. Open a can of corn one hour before it is to be cooked. When ready for it turn into a farina-kettle; pour on just enough hot water to cover it, and cook half [574] an hour. Then, add a little milk, a good lump of butter cut up in flour, pepper and salt to taste, and cook fifteen minutes longer. ”

“ And they are all as greedy of corn food as ever, for behold! No sooner had the old Raven recovered than he espied one of the ears of corn half hidden under the mantle-covers of the trays. He leaped from his place laughing. They always laugh when they find anything, these ravens. Then he caught up the ear of corn and made off with it over the heads of the people and the tops of the houses, crying.
"Ha! ha! In this wise and in no other will ye find thy Seed Maidens." ”

“ ANNIE'S CORN CAKES. One egg, one pint of sour milk, one-half teaspoonful soda, pinch salt, one-half cup flour, corn meal to make not too stiff a batter.
MUSH. W. R. C. To three quarts of boiling water, add salt to taste. Stir in gradually sufficient corn meal to make it quite thick. Boil slowly one hour. Stir often, and beat well; that will make it light and smooth. Eat with cream, milk, and butter, or syrup. To fry when cold, cut in thin slices, and fry in lard and butter, mixed. ”

“ Indian corn, in the prime and glory of its verdure, is a very beautiful vegetable, both considered in the separate plant, and in a mass in a broad field, rustling, and waving, and surging up and down in the breeze and sunshine of a summer afternoon. We have as many as fifty hills, I should think, which will give us an abundant supply. Pray Heaven that we may be able to eat it all! for it is not pleasant to think that anything which Nature has been at the pains to produce should be thrown away. ”

“ GREEN CORN DUMPLINGS.—A quart of young corn grated from the cob.—Half a pint of wheat flour, sifted.—Half a pint of milk.—Six table-spoonfuls of butter.—Two eggs.—A salt-spoonful of salt.—A salt-spoonful of pepper.—Butter for frying. Having grated as fine as possible, sufficient young fresh corn to make a quart, mix with it the wheat flour, and add the salt and pepper. Warm the milk in a small saucepan, and soften the butter in it. Then add them gradually to the pan of corn, stirring very hard; and set it away to cool. Beat the eggs light, and stir them into the mixture when it has cooled. ”

“ The flesh of the ox is eaten by the threshers at supper.
We have seen that sometimes the young corn-spirit, whose task it is to quicken the corn of the coming year, is believed to be born as a Corn-baby on the harvest-field. Similarly in Berry the young corn-spirit is sometimes supposed to be born on the field in calf form; for when a binder has not rope enough to bind all the corn in sheaves, he puts aside the wheat that remains over and imitates the lowing of a cow. ”

“ Corn in all its bearings is a peer of wheat. It is in one sense our contribution to the world’s list of grains, and in this we justly take pride. It is more largely grown than any other crop, and as a source of natural wealth it stands ahead of wheat. As a plant corn is most interesting, being plastic and quickly responsive to any favoring conditions. If corn is king, as some claim, wheat is certainly queen in this royal family of cereals.
BREAD. BY MRS. EMMA P. EWING.
The first thing to be considered in bread making is the yeast. ”

“ Corn bread is a very common diet among all classes of people in the southern states and also to a considerable extent in the north.
Owing to the lack of agglutinating powers of the nitrogenous constituents of Indian corn flour, corn bread cannot be aerated or raised, as is the case with wheat bread. It is often eaten in an unleavened state. It may be partially leavened by the usual agent, namely, yeast or a chemical baking powder. Two varieties of bread are very commonly used, namely, that made of white flour or meal and that made of yellow. ”

“ Of the corn grown in the United States, there are three general kinds: field corn, sweet corn, and pop corn. Field corn, as a rule, is grown in large quantities and allowed to mature; then it is fed to animals or ground and cooked for the use of man. This corn consists of three varieties, which are distinguished by the color of the grain, one being white, one yellow, and one red. All of them are made into a variety of preparations, but the white and the yellow are used as food for both man and animals, whereas red field corn is used exclusively for animal food. ”

“ As the day passes the excitement mounts and at last, as the cool evening breeze begins to rustle the corn leaves, the feasting begins.
The pits are opened and the steaming, tender ears are passed out to the famished crowd. It is a joyous feast for green corn is a favorite delicacy. Great quantities of food are consumed and a contented silence settles over the gorged, happy people. ”

“ When it is fresh, cut the corn from the cob, and scrape off well all that sweetest part of the corn which remains on the cob. To a pint of corn add a quart of hot water. Boil it for an hour or longer; then press it through the colander. Put into the saucepan butter the size of a small egg, and when it bubbles sprinkle in a heaping table-spoonful of sifted flour, which cook a minute, stirring it well. Now add half of the corn pulp, and, when smoothly mixed, stir in the remainder of the corn: add Cayenne pepper, salt, a scant pint of boiling milk, and a cupful of cream. ”

“ Day by day it has been a wonder how the corn has thriven and grown, with what vigour the stalks have thickened, enlarged in leaf, and deepened in green. Side by side in due rank and order they have risen, the blades have extended towards one another in loving embrace, until the whole has become a solid square field of corn, the murmur of which is like the distant wash of a languid sea over a pebbly beach. ”

“ Green Corn.—Must be boiled in clear water, with salt, from twenty minutes to half an hour; if old, it will require a longer time. It must be sent to table directly it is done, as it loses its sweetness by either boiling after it is done, or standing when dished.
(A tea-spoonful of saleratus boiled with corn is said to prevent sickness.)
1225. Corn Oysters.—One pint of grated green corn, one cup of flour, one dessert-spoonful of salt, one tea-spoonful of pepper, one egg.
Mix the ingredients together, drop, and fry them in hot lard. In taste they resemble fried oysters. ”

“ The answer to Spink and Skabootch is, “Next week you will learn all about where the corn fairies get the nails to nail down the corn if you will keep your faces washed and your ears washed till next week.”
And the next time you stand watching a big cornfield in late summer or early fall, when the wind is running across the green and silver, listen with your littlest and newest ears. Maybe you will hear the corn fairies going pla-sizzy pla-sizzy-sizzy, softer than an eye wink, softer than a Nebraska baby’s thumb. ”

“ After the third year there was seed for all, and corn became the best and surest food for all the Indian tribes. When the white men came, they ate it, too, and by cultivation made new kinds and colors. Now we have the sweet or sugar corn, the Davy's, and we have popcorn, too, which is only a dwarf corn with a hard, flinty shell which pops open with heat. ”

“ Oranges, cherries, green grapes, dried apricots, cranberries, or rhubarb compote are suitable for dessert when egg foods are used. If raw berries are desired they should be eaten at the beginning of the meal.
CANNED CORN. Thicken the corn with flour and water. Add a small 23amount of hot cream and season with salt and pepper or a few spoonfuls of tomato juice. If no cream is desired, drain off the liquid and thicken like butter sauce. Canned corn, being a rich and soft food, should not be mixed with many other foods at the same meal. ”

“ Corn-stems are firm and dry, but grass-stems hold the soaking moisture of rain and dew, which saturates the skin even through fur and feather, and quite beyond the remedy of dog-like shakings. Wheat, as we have said, is the corn most favoured of all creatures—where not planted too thickly, and growing on ground not over clean, but dotted plentifully with bunches of knapweed, thistles, and bindweed, and intersected by furrows where the corn has grown poorly, and with open spaces bare to the wind and sun. ”

“ An Indian will travel far, and subsist long on a small bag of it, taking only six or eight ounces of it per day, mixed with water.—Dr. Franklin.
Modern Modes of Popping Corn.—Take a gill, a half pint, or more of Valparaiso or Pop Corn, and put in a frying-pan, slightly buttered, or rubbed with lard. Hold the pan over a fire so as constantly to stir or shake the corn within, and in a few minutes each kernel will pop, or turn inside out, and is ready for immediate use. May be eaten with, or without, a little sugar or salt, added while hot in the pan. ”

“ Put dried sweet corn into a corn popper, iron frying pan or round bottomed iron kettle; cover, and shake over the fire until the grains are browned and puffed up nearly round. Served plain, this corn supplies a complete and satisfying food, as any one will find who sits down with a nice fresh-parched porridge dish of it and chews it until it is fine and creamy in the mouth. It is much more delicious than the finest popcorn. It may be ground and eaten in cold or hot milk, nut or dairy, and it may have a little salt and sterilized butter mixed with it while it is warm. ”

“ The Indians in their succotash taught us long ago to associate corn with beans, and they hit upon a dish not surpassed by modern invention. This delicious vegetable is as easily raised as its "hail-fellow well met," the bean. We have only to plant it at the same time in hills from three to four feet apart, and cover the seed two inches deep. I have used the powdery fertilizers and wood-ashes in the hill to great advantage, first mingling these ingredients well with the soil. We make it a point to have sweet-corn for the table from July 1 until the stalks are killed by frost in October. ”

“ There are several sorts of Indian corn, and of different colours; namely, white, red, yellow, mixt, &c. A small sort of yellow corn is ripe much sooner than most of the other sorts, but yields a smaller produce. White and yellow are the most common sorts, but there are several kinds of these. A good ear of corn contains from 14 to 20 rows, and from 40 to 50 grains of corn in each row. A hundred middling ears of corn will yield a bushel of clear corn. The Americans live mostly on corn-bread; the English eat but little of it. I have now growing 12 acres of it ”

“ This is too expensive for retail and factory use, though some use lard sparingly. Boil molasses to a stiff ball, wet your tub, put in your corn; now with a dipper pour over your candy and stir with a paddle through the corn, wet your hands in cold water, make your balls and wrap in wax paper, twisting the ends close to the balls.
FOR WHITE OR RED.—Sugar and glucose half and half, water, to melt and boil as above. Work the same.
To make six hundred bricks a day and pop this corn, put a coarse sieve in a box or barrel bottom, instead of the natural bottom. Sift your corn. ”

“ When night had fallen I cautiously left my place of concealment, dodged across the road into the woods and made for the river through the mile of corn. Such corn! It towered above me like a forest, shutting out all the starlight except what came from directly overhead. Many of the ears were a yard out of reach. One who has never seen an Alabama river-bottom cornfield has not exhausted nature's surprises; nor will he know what solitude is until he explores one in a moonless night. ”

“ It is green corn time and the tender ears of corn are at last ready for use. The corn plants are now as high as a man’s head and although the ears are fully formed, the kernels are tender and milky. They are still white: the brilliant colors will not appear until they begin to harden later on. Each day as the men come home from the fields they bring baskets of corn to their wives. The fresh corn is roasted, baked, boiled or stewed and great quantities are eaten when the families gather around their food bowls for the evening meal. Much of this green corn is also prepared for winter use. ”