When I hear bad news, my first inclination is to eat. While that’s perhaps not the most constructive way to deal with stress, it does make life better, at least temporarily. Some people like to indulge in sweet things when they’re feeling anxious, but I’ve always leaned towards the savory. I’ll take starch over sugar any day.
Recent events had me feeling out of sorts, and true to my nature I wanted a comforting dish. My first thought was to make macaroni and cheese, but I checked my inbox and saw a letter from a reader inquiring if I had a recipe for green chile corn casserole to share. He explained that he’d been craving it, and since he had lots of sweet corn and Hatch chiles, he wanted to put to them to good use.
Corn casserole or corn pudding, as it’s traditionally known, is an old Texan favorite. While these days we typically think of pudding as being dessert, hundreds of years ago it was defined as a dish thickened with grains, which meant puddings could be both sweet and savory.
Early Texan recipes for corn pudding were made with only corn, eggs, and cream with maybe a touch of sugar. Along the way, however, recipes evolved and people started adding aromatics, cornmeal, cheese, and sometimes even chiles, too. Indeed, when all those ingredients come together, it does make for solace in a dish. My reader had the right idea, and I knew what I would make.
Read more »
Comments
Post a Comment