[Sca-cooks] Southern Cornbread, was Thanksgiving Cooking in a Corset

[Edouard de Bruyerecourt]

My personal experiences in Virginia and Arkansas while visiting family is
that restaurants more often serve sweet cornbread, and many of the recipes
I come across for 'authentic Southern' cornbread have enough sugar to
sweeten the product. But some reflection at this moment reminds me that I
often find sweet cornbread in local restaurants in the Pacific Northwest.

My mother (a Denver girl) made cornbread with little or no sugar, usually
served with chili or black-eyed peas. However, it's very likely that she
learned it from my paternal grandmother, who is from Oklahoma/Arkansas.

My mother would put either bacon drippings or shortening into the bottom of
a preheated Pyrex baking pan. I use shortening usually, but I have been
trying clarified butter lately. Normally, I use a similar Pyrex pan, but
this time around, the oven decided to go on holiday early, and I managed to
do it in a cast iron Dutch oven on the stove top. Aside from the location of
the pot, I pretty much followed my usual steps.

I'll pass on the Duke's. :) I'll stick to buttermilk. I have used both fresh
buttermilk, and instant buttermilk, with satisfaction both ways.

We usually had Jiffy blueberry muffin mix in the cupboard. That's the only
Jiffy product I remember (I used to think that's all they made for that
reason).

EdB

Corwyn wrote:

> As do I, and I have 300 years worth of Southern ancestery... that's 300
> years  worth of ancestors on the white end of things <G>. Have no real
> figures on  how long the Cherokee have been here (then again. I'm
> betting they didn't add  sugar to their cornbread either).
>
> The "unusual" thing I add to cornbread is a big dollop of Duke's
> Mayonnaise.  It adds oil and egg I suppose, makes for a moister pone.
> Of course, if I'm  doing fried meat of any kind, the drippings get
> added to the corn batter. As you  see, cornbread is a complex process
> sometimes <G>.
>
> Corwyn

Johnnae wrote:

> We had ham but I still made cornbread to go with it.
> I resorted to the local variety-- it would be heresy to go with
> anything  else--http://www.jiffymix.com/