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Good Recipe!
I'm in my seventies and we've used basically the same one in our family since before my mother was born, sans the butter, ... well maybe some used a tbsp or two, and the amount of salt while cooking was but a pinch.
Trucker's Favorite seems to be about the only good field corn around these days and it's hard to find, as unfortunately, most folks don't fry corn and prefer "sweet corn" like Silver Queen.
I think the best corn for frying is quite young ... and as a result, we might use 12 ears in our receipt, rather than 10 ... since you're cooking it down, the exact amount of water isn't that important ... it depends on the corn's milk ... just so long as you have enough.
6 servings? It depends on who's doing the eating ...
The season's short for frying corn ... the great thing is that you can blanch it ... and freeze it!
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Instructions
Place an ear of corn on its end in a shallow bowl or pan. Slice the tips of the corn kernels from the cob with a sharp knife. Then scrape the kernels to remove the remaining corn and milk left next to the cob. Repeat with each ear of corn.
Place the fatback in a 10-inch iron skillet or heavy frying pan. Cook until crisp and remove, leaving the drippings in the pan. Add the corn with its milk to the pan of fatback drippings, along with the cup of water. Bring to the boil, stirring. Add the butter and salt and turn down to low heat. Cook, stirring frequently, approximately 30 minutes. Add more water, if necessary. Perfect fried corn should be thick and sticky. Taste and season.
Author's Comments
In this old-country recipe, the corn is really not fried but is called fried since it's stewed in an iron skillet. The best kind of corn to use is field or country corn, which has colorful names like Silver Queen or Trucker's Favorite. Field corn isn't as sweet as what we would call sweet corn, but its kernels are bigger. You can, of course, use sweet corn. The starch from the corn milk makes this a rich, thick corn dish.<br />
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Recipe from Nathalie Dupree's New Southern Cooking (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.).<br />
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The corn varieties noted are actually sweet corns but are of an old-style. Field corn is technically dent corn, the ubiquitous tall stalks that green the Midwestern countryside throughout the summer and are the basis for cattle feed, silage, corn syrup, yellow corn meal and gasohol. -- Comments by John Hartman, Indianapolis, IN.
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