Colonial Style Corn Fritters

I love combining my writing research with my love of cooking and good food. My characters need to eat and I want them to enjoy foods that would have been common in their time period. My current WIP (work in progress) is set at the beginning of the 19th century. My characters would have had to grow, gather, or hunt most of what they consumed.

This past week I pulled out a favorite cookbook, History from the Hearth, and made a batch of corn fritters. Yummy? You bet! Our ancestors knew their way around food. And thankfully, some of them recorded their recipes and handed them down through the generations.

Colonial Style Corn Fritters

2 cups cooked corn
2 eggs - separated
1/4 cup cream
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teas salt
1/2 teas pepper
lard for frying

Beat the eggs whites in a small bowl until stiff. In a larger bowl, slightly beat the egg yolks, then stir in the cream, flour, salt, and pepper. Fold in the egg whites. Add the corn last. Heat lard (or oil if you prefer) in a large frying pan. Drop batter by the spoonful into hot fat and fry until golden brown, then flip and cook the other side. Serve hot. 

This recipe is so simple, with ingredients any Colonial good wife would have had on hand. It could have been made over a kitchen hearth or campfire. Full of both protein and carbohydrates, these hearty fritters would have given them the energy to do all the work they needed to accomplish to survive. 

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Corn fritter #recipe from Colonial American. #Writing research that's tasty too! 

The best part of enjoying a historical recipe like this, is to eat it while enjoying a great Christian historical book. Maybe one day - God willing - it will be mine!

~ Pegg Thomas