Weekend Recipe Time

OK. I admit to being out gallivanting around in the woodlands, watching with envy while those guys in the icefishing shacks on the lake north of me were pulling in trout and bass and perch and northern pike, but there are rumblings in the political universe that indicate a hole is being chewed in the Wall of Stupid that we’ve put up with for far too long.

See below.

Just so you know, CDC this morning released a statement that covid stuff has fallen so much, masks will no long be required for indoors wear after Feb. 28. Look it up. Confirmed by local TV news jocks, and a local professor of infectious diseases, so it must be true. Basically, those numbskulls found out the hard way that their “one mask to rule them all, one mask to find them” plan didn’t work so well, but keep an eye open for a new panic attack announcement.  (Poor covid, fell on hard times, couldn’t even compete with the two years of Spanish flu (1918-1920) or the nasty Medieval Plagues.)

Meantime, I said would provide some real old-fashioned cooking for you, things that allow you to stock your shelves quietly and still have good food, and this old recipe for corn meal mush – the real thing – from the 1956 BH&G cookbook – is presented herewith.

This is something my dad used to fix on cold winter mornings when the snow outside was deep enough that you could jump into it off the garage roof and not get your neck broken.  We’d be out shoveling snow off the crosswalk to the garage and then get into snowball fights and build snowmen and pile up snow so that we could end up in a pile of it, jumping off that garage. Good times.

Fried Corn Mean Mush

Ingredients:

• 2 ¾ cups of water
• 1 cup of corn meal
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 cup of cold water
• 1 teaspoon of sugar

Instructions:

•  Bring to a boil 2 ¾ cups of water.
•  Combine 1 cup of corn meal, 1 cup of cold water, 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of sugar. Stir thoroughly to get the lumps out.
•  Gradually add mix to the pan of boiling water, stirring constantly.
•  Cook until thick, stirring frequently.
•  Cover and cook over LOW heat for 10 to 15 minutes.
•  Pour batter into a 7 ½” x 3 ½” x 2 ¼” loaf pan.
•  Let the batter cool and then cover it and chill it for several hours or overnight in the ice box. (The what??)
•  Turn the loaf out onto a clean plate or cutting board.
•  Cut into ½ inch slices.
•  Fry slowly in hot fat, turning once. (The edges will get crispy.)

When browned, serve hot with butter and maple syrup, sausages and/or nice, crispy bacon and toast. You can make this ahead of needing it, as long as you keep it covered, but don’t freeze it.

Note: This recipe will serve six people (or two starving kids or grandkids), so take that into consideration. Send them out to shovel the snow out of the driveway or have a snowball fight first. Kids do still want snow forts for snowball fights, right?

I have not estimated the cost of this breakfast in today’s prices, but corn meal is available at the grocery stores and is plenty cheap. I never tried it with orange marmalade or any other jam, but as a part of the morning meal, along with whole-grain toast and scrambled eggs and bacon or ham, it is much less expensive than microwave stuff, and most likely healthier, too.

I also have, off-stage and waiting for the curtain call, corn meal griddle cakes and crispy corn meal waffles, which you can make with or without canned cream corn. I will post those this weekend.

If you do go ice fishing, please let us know what and how many you caught and how you cooked them. Winter is not yet done with us.

Category: Blue Skies, Cooking, Economy