SCALLOP OF TOMATOES AND GREEN CORN

Fresh tomatoes, sliced
Bread crumbs
Butter
Salt
Pepper
Sugar
Shallot, minced fine
Backfat or fat bacon, minced fine
Fresh ripe corn

This is made as above [Scalloped Tomatoes], substituting for the bread-crumbs in the force-meat, green corn cut from the cob, and seasoned with some fat pork chopped very fine, a minced shallot, pepper, salt and sugar. Let the top layer be tomatoes, butter and season, and sift grated bread-crumbs over it to brown the scallop. Bake covered half an hour; uncover and leave in the oven as much longer. This time is for a large dishful.

From Common Sense in the Household by Marion Harland, New York, 1871

Comment: "Green corn" did not mean corn which was unripe, which would be disgusting and cause digestive problems besides. It simply meant corn which had just become ripe, whose husks were bright green in color. Most corn was not intended to be eaten as a fresh table vegetable, but rather to be dried and then ground into corn ("Indian") meal for use in bread products. The development of different strains of "sweet corn" versus "field corn" lay in the future. The notion of growing corn as feed for livestock, aside from very minor amounts for horses undergoing heavy labor such as in military service, was entirely unknown. Anyone proposing such a notion would most likely have been put away in an asylum by his family for his own protection until the balance of his mind was restored.

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