Prairie Recipes
By Collette
Most pioneer families grew corn as a staple food. Eaten in many
ways, most families incorporated corn meal into some kind of bread.
Below is a simple corn bread recipe Maddie’s mother might have used.
Corn Bread
1 cup flour ¾
teaspoon salt
1 cup corn meal 2
eggs
¼ cup sugar 1
cup milk
4 teaspoons baking
powder ¼ cup
shortening or bacon fat
Use an 8 or 9 inch
cast iron skillet. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Put shortening or fat in skillet
in oven to melt. Mix dry ingredients together. Beat egg and milk together and
stir into dry ingredients. Pour hot shortening into the batter and stir
together. Put into hot skillet and bake 18-20 minutes until brown around edges.
Cut into pie-shape wedges and serve with butter or syrup. Serves nine.
A recipe from the Civil War times is fried corn, another way to use
fresh garden vegetables.
Fried Corn
6 ears of fresh
sweet corn Chopped
green onions
Chopped green
peppers Oil
or lard to cover cast iron skillet ¼ inch
Cut corn from cob,
but do not scrape. Chop half a green pepper and several green onions very fine.
Heat cast iron skillet over a medium high heat until when you hold the palm of
your hand one inch above the bottom and it feels hot. Add lard. When melted,
add corn, onions and green peppers. Do not stir. Sprinkle with salt. Lift with
a turner and if the bottom is not brown, lift all of it up and cook some more. Do
this several more times. Then put into a serving bowl and enjoy. Serves 4.
My boys and the grandkids like the escalloped corn I make. It became
our staple vegetable for holiday meals.
Escalloped Corn
1 can cream style
corn ½
cup of milk
1 can whole kernel
corn 1
box Jiffy corn bread mix
1 stick melted
butter Pepper
and salt to taste
2 beaten eggs
Mix all together and
pour into 9 inch casserole dish coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350 degrees
for one hour. This does not fall as does regular escalloped corn. Serves 8.
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