Today is about corn fritters but first, some housekeeping.

Hurricane Beryl in Tamarian.

The Bayou City unprepared. The Summer heat with no power. Days of fretting, there is no joy. Generators, their mouths open and hungry! Justan, in traffic, using a truck for safety. Justan, his eyes open, the truck, full of propane. Justan, on the hunt, stalking the truck. At Ace hardware, the truck delivers. Justan, four hours in the sun. Justan, his homecoming with gas! Power, gone for days. The propane line at Ace hardware once more. In the night, sleeping in sweat. Life, like it once was, but still different. Like Cheech and Chong, Justan’s deductible. The cost is eaten, like in the pornos.

What? I’m a Trekker. Fuck off.

Yeah, the storm sucked. The aftermath continues to suck. It is what it is. Life goes on.

Fucking Dr. Ruth and Richard Simmons died. So did Shannen Doherty and Shelly Duvall. Oh, and Trump got a new piercing. Weird week.

I loved Dr. Ruth back in the day. She taught us that as long as everyone consented and wore condom, everything was going to be OK. Shannen struggled bravely. Her meat suit was just bullshit. I hope she’s well now. Shelly also got a raw deal and I sincerely hope things are better for her. I’m willing to believe our energy persists when we leave our bodies. Doesn’t matter, honestly.

Richard Simmons, on the other hand…

I met Richard Simmons when I was a pudgy 13 year old. I was playing Ms. Pac Man at one of those sit down “barcade” consoles at the Royal Plaza Hotel in Orlando Florida when the dude came bursting in. “Hiiiiiyyyeeee!!!!! How are you today??????” He said to everyone there. No one said much. He bounced like a pinball from person to person, greeting them in his “Richard Simmons Way”. I kept my head down, playing Ms. Pac Man. He came to me, assuming because of my doughiness I was there for him. You know, because there is nothing else for a 13 year old to do in Orlando, Florida. “What? Disneyworld? Epcot? Oh, hell no. I’m here to sweat with the oldies.”

“Are you here to be a part of my show????” Mr. Simmons asked me. He had no idea he was “fat shaming” me. That wouldn’t be invented for another 30 years. “No.” I responded. “I’m here to play Ms. Pac Man, yogurt breath.” That was the best insult I could come up with. I regret it to this day. Not the insult, the contempt behind it.

What I didn’t understand when I was 13 is that Richard used to be fat and honestly believed he was there to help people, even the young. It was not a pleasant interaction and for my part, I regret it. He was genuine. I mean, sure, he was all show-biz and shit, but he didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He was very apologetic, once he realized what he had done. God, I wish I could go back.

Richard Simmons was a nice man. That’s really all I have to say. He was nice. He never wanted to harm a soul. I wish there were more of him.

Alright. Housekeeping is done. Time for fritters. Let’s give the Millennial reboot of Richard Simmons something to fret over.

Like so many things on my food blogging adventure, these corn fritters were born out of a sense memory from my childhood. My mother made them once, that I can recall and they made an impression. I was probably 9 at the time and here it is, 45 years later and I still remember them. They were good. They were sweet. They were crunchy. They were full of corn. They were confusing as hell to my 9-year-old brain.

I had very concrete definitions of what food should and shouldn’t be and corn had no place in anything sweet and wonderful. I got over my preconceived notions eventually. I think when we are children, we need to believe in a rigid construct of our reality as a touchstone or jumping off point for further exploration of the world around us. Once we know more, we can start de/reconstructing as actual reality reveals itself over time.

Mom left no recipes when she shuffled off her mortal coil in ’92. Or if she did, I never saw them. The only thing passed on to me was her original NES which she dearly loved and I wound up pawning later, probably to get a Sega Genesis. No recipes to work from means spending quality time with my memories, doing research, and playing in the kitchen.

Theoretical research indicates there are several different ways to go with a corn fritter. In fact, the primary difficulty seems to be getting people to agree on what a corn fritter is. Food’s a bitch that way. So many misnomers. So many peoples’ mothers told them a hush puppie is a corn fritter. Or a Hoecake. So in order to arrive at my destination, I had to define what a corn fritter, or more to the point, a fritter is.

The definition I worked from is this: “a deep-fried free-form amalgam of thick batter or slack dough, overloaded with non-batter or dough ingredients, often fruit or vegetables, served warm. May be either sweet or savory, depending on the purpose.” And when you think about it from those terms, a surprising number of food items turn out to be fritters. That’s right, egg foo yung. I’m looking at you. And there are even more recipes being passed off as fritters out there that have nothing to do with fritters. Hell, some aren’t even fried. Clearly, I had to make up my own.

What I was looking for wasn’t exactly the sense memory of my mother’s corn fritters. Those were good, but they were a little sweet. What I’m looking for is something light and fluffy, crispy-crunchy on the outside, highlighting the natural sweetness of the corn, but suitable as a savory cornbread substitute. I decided to go with a hot water cornbread base for my fritters. I did this for a couple reasons, the first being flour is too cakey for a corn fritter. I still use flour, but it’s only 25% of my “batter”. The second reason I went with the hot water cornbread base is all that moisture from the pre-gelatinized cornmeal would turn to steam in the hot oil, pushing its way out of the fritter and preventing the crust from absorbing too much fry oil, leaving it light and crispy. It worked like a champ on the second trial. The first time was just… wrong.

I also changed the flavor profile a little bit by introducing hatch chiles into the mix. It’s a Texas thing. We like peppers in our cornbread and what works for cornbread works just as well for fritters. And, because hatch chiles are so mild, they also added to the natural sweetness meaning I got a fritter that could be served as a side with savory as well as sweet. As I write this, I’m seriously considering pairing the final recipe with pepper jelly and cream cheese for breakfast. That sounds like magic to me.

At the end of the day, I did manage to get what I want. I’ll post the recipe when I post the other recipes for the next Sunday Supper. Pinto Beans and ham hocks with rice, fried okra, corn fritters and possibly a bread pudding. I might try to come up with something lighter for dessert. It’s summer and too damn hot to eat.

Happy cooking.