I meant 18th century. Understood though with a corn boiler not being a thing.
So what they mean is that the things that have been labelled a "corn boiler" either were not around OR..., they were here but they didn't call them that.
These are really 20th century things, The domed lid and small size pretty much give them away. These were all the rage in the 1990's
Another thing you find for sale as "corn boilers" are American Civil War "muckets", but folks try to say these are RevWar or earlier. I personally think these are one of the worst designs for personal cooking
A "small copper pot" which is has about 3x the capacity of the small "corn boiler" would be correct....
These are fine, and you place cloth sacks within when hiking for holding dry ingredients, that you will later cook
Now IF you want something small, you can always try a brass, trade kettle
So I mentioned "corn boilers" were not a "thing" but there was the Soldier's Can, a tin mug
With liquid in them the soldered seams won't melt open, AND you can always take a nail, and punch two holes, and add a bale type handle to them
The advantage of this is that you can hang this over the fire. NOTE that the bale goes in a hole adjacent to the mug handle, and then opposite that hole. This allows you to still drink from the side of the mug as normal.
BOILING
They didn't know about germs as we do today, BUT they did understand cause-and-effect relationships, and knew that if one boiled food, one tended to be healthier.
Rock-a-hominy, which isn't hominy nor grits. You take dried, dent corn, and then dry-roast it in an iron pan. This is really the corn that should be boiled in a "corn boiler", and it can be eaten unboiled and dry... sorta like a salt free corn chip. So you take the dry-roasted corn (aka "parched") , then grind it. This type of corn meal may be eaten dry with a few gulps of water OR you can make a corn porridge with hot water, some salt and cayenne pepper. Highly nutritious. You can add dried beef jerky or bits of air cured bacon.
Cube up a potato into small cubes and boil that up. Smaller cubes cook much faster.
Mash up the tiny cubes with some olive oil and salt , and that's pretty close to mashed potatoes made with milk and butter.
Oat Groats (oat grain not rolled nor cut) may be boiled and eaten. 1/2 cup oat groats in a cup of water, but you need to boil for about an hour, until the grain looks like it has burst. ( You will need to add water as this cooks) Add some brown sugar if you wish.
Dried Hominy.... grits is merely this ground up, and like groats boil them for about an hour until soft. IF you have salted butter this stuff is great. You can get away with some olive oil and some salt
Cornmeal may be boiled into Hasty Pudding
Carry raisins, especially if you are hiking. Potassium in the raisins wards off leg cramps, especially in hot weather. Add raisins to any porridge or hasty pudding.
Lentils boil the fastest of the beans.
Peas, especially split peas boil pretty fast too. With some smoky dried cured bacon, that makes a fine meal.
IF you can't find dry cured bacon, use shelf stable pre-cooked bacon
You can crush up
ship's biscuit, and add that to bacon pieces in water. IF you make
ship's biscuit yourself, use whole wheat
pastry flour and add a cup of whole wheat bran, to get the ship's biscuit right.
Abuelita or Ibarra brand Mexican chocolate may be grated into boiled corn meal, or may be eaten straight.
You can boil coffee or tea, and add sugar. Yaupon Tea has been rediscovered in North America, and was a very popular, green tea, and HAS caffeine. I think it's tasty.
LD