CORN PUDDING

What makes something corny?  In the early 1930’s the word was used in a derogatory way to describe anything that appealed to unsophisticated people like farmers. In other words, they were “corn-fed.”  According to The Word Detective:

• Some of the earliest documented uses of “corny” were among jazz musicians in the late 1920s, who used the term to mean an old-fashioned or trite style of jazz, likening it to music that might be heard in the boondocks, perhaps at a square dance. Derogatory references to rural inhabitants, culture and customs as being crude and unsophisticated were nothing new at the time, of course, and persist to this day in such terms as “hick” and “rube” (short for Henry and Reuben, once considered typical “country” names), as well as such slurs as “hayseed.” For a jazz musician whose status depended on constantly forging new styles of music, nothing was more deadly than being considered “corny,” and by the 1930s the term had percolated into general usage in the sense of “trite or sentimental.”

Whatever the etymology of the word, calling something corny is generally not considered a compliment.  This casserole could change the way you think of the word, “corny.”  It is in fact an easy, almost trite, dish with a familiar flavor profile especially if you are from the South.  It’s sweet, buttery and creamy and spiked with whole corn kernels.  It’s so easy, it’s pitiful.  And it puts to good use that ubiquitous Jiffy corn muffin mix that you might otherwise be embarrassed to toss in your shopping cart.  You don’t need to go to Fresh Market or Whole Foods for the ingredients in this recipe; they’re at Winn Dixie if they are not already in your pantry.