Looking for Southern Corn bread

[Savedforever]

I am from central NC, and my ancestors were farmers and plain country folk. When I was growing up, I never saw baked or cake corn bread. All I knew was fried cornbread.... fried in an iron skillet, of course...

We use only stone ground white cornmeal. We start by putting warm salted water in a bowl, and break up pieces of loaf bread into the water. Then add enough cornmeal to make thick enough to drop from a spoon into hot Crisco.

My great grandmother used to crumble hers into her greenbeans and eat with a fork. Double yum!

[grower]

My great grandmother used to crumble hers into her greenbeans and eat with a fork. Double yum!

The only time I remember seeing my dad drink milk was whenever my mom made cornbread. Dad would always ask for a glass of milk, and he'd crumble the cornbread into the milk and spoon it out to eat.

[angelwing]

Thank you everyone I will see what he wants, thanks!!!!!!!

[Gercarson]

Having been born in rural Western Kentucky I was raised on "real" cornbread but never was interested enough in cooking to learn how to make cornbread. I did see my mother make it often, didn't take any "mental" notes that were good enough. I've searched for a recipe like hers for years because it was sooooooooo good. We often ate it as "cornbread and milk" - we had the cows, we had the corn and it was a perfect and very satisfying meal.
Well - I think I've found the recipe - it was in Mother Earth News a while back - can't get my hands on it now, but yawl probably have a copy anyway. It is "almost" like moms - NO flour - very good AND it is good.

[CaryC]

Hey,

Lordy, Lordy, I'm not sure about all that above, but Mississippi country boys don't eat biscuits that are whopped on a counter, and we don't eat yellow cornbread. That may even be grounds for divorce, I'll have to check.

Anyway what I'm about to tell ya, has been used here in Northern Mississippi since about the mid 1800's. It would of been used longer than that, but we didn't get here till then.

There are two "have to's" in this. One-have to use "Sunflower White Corn Meal", and two-have to use an iron skillet, well seasoned. And if'n you can't get Sunshine White Corn Meal...move.

This is for an iron skillet that is 5" which will feed two, very comfortably. I would guess that for a 10" skillet you could double it. There ain't no exact measurements:

First: grease with "Crisco" the iron skillet (might want to use a paper towel, much like greasing a baking pan for a cake).

In a bowl about 2 cups of "WHITE" cornmeal
mix in one egg
and enough milk (sweet or butter your taste) to make it the consistency of thin cake batter
pour in skillet (do not pre heat skillet)

Oven set at 450, bake until top is golden brown.

If you've got a well seasoned skillet, you can plop it out on a plate and hang it back up.

Cut the pone into wedges, like a pizza.

I like to put a dollop of butter (the real thing please) in mine. I can eat it that way with out milk. The outside will be a little crunchy/crusty and the inside will be like a cake. Hummmm Hummmm good.

O, and if you have to use some of that off brand white corn meal, like Gold Medal, or something, don't tell hubby. Just say it's due to the high humidity, or the full moon, or something, just don't let on it's not Sunflower.

And for those who would fry their cornbread, it's called Corn Fritters. Bread is baked and fritters fried.

Hope that helps.

[Disastercat]

My friends in Vicksburg and Hattiesburg, used white corn meal when they could but also used the yellow kind (it was cheaper). But the important thing to them was to NEVER USE SUGAR in your corn bread, that was how Yankees ate it. As a native California (but with a real Mississippi accent thanks to Summers in Vicksburg as a child) I was exempt from at least that particular nickname.

North Mississippi may be stricter on the white corn meal, I know it was considered the best corn meal to make corn bread with and exclusive used for corn bread made without wheat flour. I never saw a mix of white-corn meal/wheat flour that I can recall and I lived there for nearly ten years from 16 to 26 and learned my basic cooking skills there.

The really interesting thing is that while I learned to make wheat/corn bread in a skillet my first lesson, during a Mississippi Summer with no air-conditioning, I never saw the flat-fried/white version until that afternoon in California made by someone from a border State.

The person who made it was from Tennessee, which makes me now wonder if this style is more common in North Mississippi/Tennessee/Arkansas etc., any thoughts?

Anyway, I like all kinds of corn bread from Tex-Mex with corn and green chilies to Yankee cakes made with honey and cream. But I mostly make basic Southern Yellow corn bread, except when I can get white corn meal at the Asian market. Then I make spoon bread, another Southern special dish that deserves to be in every prepper's kitchen.

[Shooting Star]

I make mine in the small cast iron skillet - very simple - 1 cup corn meal (heaping cup) - 1 egg - and buttermilk - I just add enough buttermilk to make it about cake batter consistency. Spray cast iron skillet with pam or similar - add corn meal mixture and bake on 450 for 25 minutes.