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Canned Sweet Corn

Preserved corn made by boiling, layering with salt and lard, then canning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Canned Sweet Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn

  1. Boil the corn in a pot of water until the milk does not flow from the grains when pricked with a fork.

  2. Cut the corn from the cob with a sharp knife, shaving as close to the cob as possible.

Salt-pack in a crock

  1. In a wide-mouthed stone crock, place a ½-inch layer of salt at the bottom.

  2. Add a 2-inch layer of corn, followed by more salt, and repeat until the jar is full.

  3. Top with a 1-inch layer of salt.

  4. Melt enough lard to cover the salt and pour it on after it cools.

  5. Press a round of white paper on top before the lard hardens.

  6. Store the jar in a cool place.

  7. Before cooking, soak the corn for several hours.

Can the corn

  1. For the second method, cut the corn from the cob before cooking and pack it into tin cans.

  2. Seal the cans hermetically and place them in a large boiler with straw between them.

  3. Cover the cans with cold water and bring to a boil.

  4. Boil for 1 hour, then remove from heat and puncture the top to release gases.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Green corn
Provides the sweet kernels that form the body of the preserved dish.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the corn and acts as the preserving agent.
Lard
Forms a sealing fat layer that keeps air away from the corn.

The step that matters

Sealing the cans hermetically. Heat-processed corn in sealed containers is only safe if the seal is airtight, since any leak lets microbes survive and spoil the contents. Puncturing the top releases built-up gas after boiling.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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