Baking on Wednesday - the ins and outs of cornbread
Cornbread. Southern food historians could go on and on about it. There's a lot to unpack and I'm by no means an expert, but cornbread is something I've had a lot of in my life. I learned it all from my mother, of course. Let's cover some points of note.
1. Sugar and Flour
Let's just go ahead and address the elephant in the room: sugar or no sugar in the cornbread. Articles for years, like this one in the Charlotte Observer, have talked about the racial divide in sugar-in-cornbread issue. To oversimplify it, black folks favor some sugar, white folks don't. And I guess it's a good generalization, because I don't put sugar in mine. I've heard cornbread like that called "corn light bread," although I'm not sure why. It's cake-like. Think Jiffy Cornbread mix.
The Charlotte Observer article makes an interesting point, though: sugar was a valuable commodity in the rural South and country cooks wouldn't have dreamed of squandering it in a pone of cornbread. My mother grew up poor in the rural South and I'm sure she was just repeating what she'd been taught.
The article goes on to quote an older essay by Ronni Lundy in which she states "For me, we don’t put sugar or flour in our cornbread in the mountain South because those were things we’d have to buy, or we’d have to be beholdened to someone for. Your daily bread was things you could grow yourself. When I taste the bread of my mother and forebears, it resonates for me culturally as an act of independence. Corn is an individual’s ability to feed him or herself.”
This quote sums it up very nicely for me. My mother didn't grow up anywhere near a mountain, but she was born poor in rural Mississippi in the 1930's. They weren't buying a lot of flour or sugar and so neither went into her cornbread.
2. Color of the meal
This is an issue that's connected to the sweetness and tends to be racially divided as well. White people tend to choose white meal and black people tend to choose yellow meal. I use White Lily brand white cornmeal. I have made a modern concession to choose the "self rising" variety. I know a lot of food snobs would reject "self rising" but having it in the mix means I can whip up cornbread batter in about 3-4 minutes at most. I can get cornbread going very spontaneously.
3. Cast iron
You know you have to use cast iron, right? Well, you do. Don't bother with the corn sticks. Most Southern cooks favor the 9 inch skillet for cornbread but Mother liked hers a little thinner and crisper, so she used the 10 inch cast iron skillet. She called it "the number 7 skillet." I've come to think of the old cast iron as "po folks' non stick cookware" because a good seasoned cast iron pan is like glass. I've inherited mine from Mother's mother and I treasure it as much as any antique in my home.
4. Toppings
The Charlotte Observer article briefly mentions drizzling molasses or cane syrup over the top of cornbread. I've seen my mother do both and I remember her saying she had that for breakfast many times during her growing up years. I guess molasses was a lot cheaper for poor people and it was loaded with calories, so it was a good choice for people on a working farm.
If you haven't tried it, you need to. I favor Steen's Cane Syrup. Below is a photo of a can of it served with some biscuits back in 2016 from my Instagram. The good people at Amazon can deliver a can right to your door.
5. With milk
Mother introduced my father, whom I called Papa, to a delicacy I don't believe he had ever experienced growing up but had come to love: "cornbread and clabber." Simply put, cornbread and clabber was cornbread crumbled into a cold glass of buttermilk. I couldn't stand buttermilk and so Mother made mine with "sweet milk"... whole milk. Again, you might not want to go full-on Southerner and choose clabber, but crumble up some cornbread in a glass of whole milk some time. It's fine, it really is.
So here's the recipe.
Before you mix anything up, get your "number 7" out and put a tablespoon of butter in it and place in your 400 degree oven. While you whip up the batter, the skillet gets hot and the butter melts.
Once you have that done, put 2 cups of White Lily Self Rising Cornmeal Mix in a bowl. Add one beaten egg, 1 1/2 cups of milk and 1/2 stick melted butter. That's it. Mix but DO NOT OVERMIX. Your cornbread will come out tough. It won't take but a few stirs to bring it all together.
By the time you have that done, the butter will be melted. Swirl it all around in the skillet and take a pinch of the cornmeal and throw it in the pan. I'm not sure it does much but it was a ritual Mother observed and so I do too. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes, but check it at 15 and 18 minutes. It might not take the full 20.
That's it! Easy peasy. No flour and no sugar. Four ingredients. Cornbread truly couldn't be easier to make.
XoxoL
from my Instagram - New Year's Day 2018
1. Sugar and Flour
Let's just go ahead and address the elephant in the room: sugar or no sugar in the cornbread. Articles for years, like this one in the Charlotte Observer, have talked about the racial divide in sugar-in-cornbread issue. To oversimplify it, black folks favor some sugar, white folks don't. And I guess it's a good generalization, because I don't put sugar in mine. I've heard cornbread like that called "corn light bread," although I'm not sure why. It's cake-like. Think Jiffy Cornbread mix.
The Charlotte Observer article makes an interesting point, though: sugar was a valuable commodity in the rural South and country cooks wouldn't have dreamed of squandering it in a pone of cornbread. My mother grew up poor in the rural South and I'm sure she was just repeating what she'd been taught.
The article goes on to quote an older essay by Ronni Lundy in which she states "For me, we don’t put sugar or flour in our cornbread in the mountain South because those were things we’d have to buy, or we’d have to be beholdened to someone for. Your daily bread was things you could grow yourself. When I taste the bread of my mother and forebears, it resonates for me culturally as an act of independence. Corn is an individual’s ability to feed him or herself.”
This quote sums it up very nicely for me. My mother didn't grow up anywhere near a mountain, but she was born poor in rural Mississippi in the 1930's. They weren't buying a lot of flour or sugar and so neither went into her cornbread.
2. Color of the meal
This is an issue that's connected to the sweetness and tends to be racially divided as well. White people tend to choose white meal and black people tend to choose yellow meal. I use White Lily brand white cornmeal. I have made a modern concession to choose the "self rising" variety. I know a lot of food snobs would reject "self rising" but having it in the mix means I can whip up cornbread batter in about 3-4 minutes at most. I can get cornbread going very spontaneously.
3. Cast iron
You know you have to use cast iron, right? Well, you do. Don't bother with the corn sticks. Most Southern cooks favor the 9 inch skillet for cornbread but Mother liked hers a little thinner and crisper, so she used the 10 inch cast iron skillet. She called it "the number 7 skillet." I've come to think of the old cast iron as "po folks' non stick cookware" because a good seasoned cast iron pan is like glass. I've inherited mine from Mother's mother and I treasure it as much as any antique in my home.
4. Toppings
The Charlotte Observer article briefly mentions drizzling molasses or cane syrup over the top of cornbread. I've seen my mother do both and I remember her saying she had that for breakfast many times during her growing up years. I guess molasses was a lot cheaper for poor people and it was loaded with calories, so it was a good choice for people on a working farm.
If you haven't tried it, you need to. I favor Steen's Cane Syrup. Below is a photo of a can of it served with some biscuits back in 2016 from my Instagram. The good people at Amazon can deliver a can right to your door.
5. With milk
Mother introduced my father, whom I called Papa, to a delicacy I don't believe he had ever experienced growing up but had come to love: "cornbread and clabber." Simply put, cornbread and clabber was cornbread crumbled into a cold glass of buttermilk. I couldn't stand buttermilk and so Mother made mine with "sweet milk"... whole milk. Again, you might not want to go full-on Southerner and choose clabber, but crumble up some cornbread in a glass of whole milk some time. It's fine, it really is.
This is a screen capture from an Instagram story of mine from two years ago. Go watch. You'll see how quick and easy cornbread really is.
So here's the recipe.
Before you mix anything up, get your "number 7" out and put a tablespoon of butter in it and place in your 400 degree oven. While you whip up the batter, the skillet gets hot and the butter melts.
Once you have that done, put 2 cups of White Lily Self Rising Cornmeal Mix in a bowl. Add one beaten egg, 1 1/2 cups of milk and 1/2 stick melted butter. That's it. Mix but DO NOT OVERMIX. Your cornbread will come out tough. It won't take but a few stirs to bring it all together.
By the time you have that done, the butter will be melted. Swirl it all around in the skillet and take a pinch of the cornmeal and throw it in the pan. I'm not sure it does much but it was a ritual Mother observed and so I do too. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes, but check it at 15 and 18 minutes. It might not take the full 20.
That's it! Easy peasy. No flour and no sugar. Four ingredients. Cornbread truly couldn't be easier to make.
XoxoL
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