Every Southern cook has a corn pudding recipe. Most of them inherited it from someone who never wrote it down. The dish itself is older than the Republic, tracing back to Native American preparations that colonists adopted and enriched with eggs and dairy. What emerged was something neither side dish nor dessert, but occupying that comfortable middle ground where the best American food lives.

The texture you're after sits between a soufflé and a bread pudding. Soft enough to eat with a spoon, firm enough to hold its shape on the plate. The corn should announce itself in every bite, sweet kernels suspended in a custard that tastes of butter and the faintest whisper of sugar. Too much sweetness and you've made a casserole for people who don't actually like vegetables. Too little and the dish turns savory and plain.

I've made this recipe for Thanksgiving tables from Charleston to Portland. It disappears faster than the turkey. The technique is forgiving. The ingredients are humble. What makes it special is the care you bring to balancing corn flavor against custard richness. Fresh corn in summer produces transcendent results, but good frozen corn in November will honor your grandmother's memory just fine.