Corn Gems for Breakfast; The Burpee Strategy to Educate

Yes, the recipe is in this post :-)

W. Atlee Burpee was a
very good businessman as well as seedsman. 

If you don't know what to do with a vegetable, you certainly won't buy seeds to raise it!!

Burpee published many books, most of them on horticulture.

Horticultural Books

WHY WE PUBLISH THEM

In the success of the planter is the germ of our success. First, the best Seeds, Bulbs, and Plants; next, the plainly told practice of accepted experts in gardening and farming.

Books Free as Premiums. 

With the standard high and prices low we go further, -by allowing a credit of ten cents, on every dollar sent for seeds, plants, or bulbs toward the purchase of any book we publish that the purchaser may desire. Thus, a $2.00 order, with 10 cents added, can select any book offered for 30 cents, with 30 cents added, any book offered for 50 cents; or a $3.00 order can select entirely free any book offered for 30 cents; or a $5.00 order any book offered for 50 cents; and so on, we more than meeting our customers half way in our desire to give them FREE the best books for the Farm and Garden.      

It will be noticed that these premiums are entirely Free, and do not prevent the selection of $1.25 Worth of seeds in packets for Each $1.00 sent us for seeds in packets. If the purchaser's order is all for seeds by weight or measure, on which we do not allow this discount, he is still entitled to the selection of any of our books.

CORN GEMS from Mrs. Rorer's book

I pint of corn, 

3 eggs,

1 pint of milk, 

1 1/2 pints of flour,

1 tablespoonful of butter,

1/2 teaspoonful of salt,

    2 teaspoonfuls of baking powder.

Scrape the corn and press it out as directed on Page 40 (page 40 - Corn Fritters - Score the corn down the centre of each row of grains, then with a blunt knife press out the pulp, leaving the hull on the cob. Never grate corn, as in that way you get all). 

Add to it the milk, salt, yolks of the eggs and flour. Beat well and stir in carefully the whites of the eggs beaten to a stiff froth and the baking powder. Bake in greased gem pans in a moderate oven thirty minutes; serve hot. These, if carefully made, are delicious breakfast cakes.

from How to Cook Vegetables, By Sarah Tyson Heston Rorer

Note: The term gem likely comes from the cakes being small and decoratively-shaped, like "gems". Another possibility is that the term came from a kitchen housewares company named Gem that sold baking tins which came to be generically referred to as "Gem pans".  http://www.castironcollector.com/gems.php