There is a scene early in the movie where Angel Eyes comes upon a group of Rebs who are nursing their wounds, and he speaks to one of them. This guy is talking about how well the confederate govt takes care of the soldiers, and he does this while tossing corn cobs into a barrel.
It would appear to me as if he was going to mash the cobs. He took them from a large black iron vat (I am guessing) but I am not sure if the bigger vat was on a fire… Maybe it was, to soften up the cobs.
Anyway, my question is this. What can you make from corn cobs? Is this something that is mashed/eaten by people all the time even now, or is it something that is only done if there is nothing left to eat?
There is such a volume of cobs in the scene that it would indicate that they were used as food. I would think if anything, the horses and mules would eat them, but I thought I’d ask if anyone knows what can be made from mashed corn cobs?
Mods, move if you feel appropriate. This is a factual question, so I put it here. Maybe it will get more looks in CS. Your call.
There are two types of people in the world, my friend…
IIRC, isn’t he cooking them? To show the dire circumstances that the soldiers are in, corn cobs can be used as animal fodder so they’ve sunk to chowing down on what they’d give the cattle.
This the scene? Looks like the cauldron is boiling, wiki says that you can make corncob jelly to thicken soup stock with the water. Although I doubt ‘Corn cobs, Dixie-style’ is as sophisticated as that.
A lot of Asian stir fry recipes use baby corn, and the cob is edible in that instance. I suspect as long as you can tenderize it enough to chew it, you’d be able to eat a full-size corn cob.
But if you’re that destitute, you may want to save a few of them for one of their other uses.
Yes, this is the scene. And thanks for posting. Clearly, the pot is on a fire, so he is heating the pile of corn cobs before moving them to the smaller mashing pot.
