Real Corn Bread

W. Hilditch

Active member
The cooks out there might want to try this one. It's a "9".

Earnest Parker of Gilmer County, GA who was born about 1900 gives his corn bread recipe:

“First you sift the cornmeal to get the bran out of it, then you break it up with buttermilk or plain water and put salt and soda in it, along with an egg and some lard, and put it in the oven and bake it, or in the fire place if not in the stove. When you finish, you’ll have somethin’ good to eat, I’ll tell you . . . that corn bread!”

Hilditch
 
No Jennifer, the success of this recipe depends on feel for how much of what goes in and the cook's ability to judge the correct amounts to give the desired result. Some experimentation and changes may be in order to get exactly what you want. Like making yourself a bowl of cereal or a sandwich.

Actually Mr. Parker provided us with some of the most important part of any recipe, technique. The rest is up to us.

Hilditch
 
No Jennifer, the success of this recipe depends on feel for how much of what goes in and the cook's ability to judge the correct amounts to give the desired result. Some experimentation and changes may be in order to get exactly what you want. Like making yourself a bowl of cereal or a sandwich.

What?!!!!! Come on.. You tease us, then just give a list of ingredients and tell us to figure it out. That's like giving someone a 20 piece puzzle with 10 pieces missing.

So just tell us what YOU have figured out that works?

Sifting the bran out of cornmeal? My cornmeal just comes with cornmeal. I make butter, so I have buttermilk, I have salt, Lard.. Will Crisco work?
 
Old recipes are vague like this one. They also use old terms like water ground corn meal or sweet milk. Plus ingredients we no longer use like clabbered milk. I guess is it was pointless to specify temperature and time. Due to the lack of thermometers on most ranges and no clock in the kitchen. It bothers me when it doesn't specify the measurements, though.
 
OK RickC, here you go. My late response is due to my yearly vacation from the computer in the Keys. I grind my own corn and then follow the recipe. It turns out best when I measure nothing, but use what looks right. Sometimes I bake it in my cast iron stove oven which does not have a temperature gauge but needs to be hot until it is done in an 8” skillet or the BSR corn bread pan. No Jiffy, no Quaker, no Crisco, no wheat flour, no BS. This is what works for me.

“I meant what I said and I s……..” This is for “the cooks out there”.

Hilditch
 
My Father, now passed, once told me that corn bread should be made with white corn meal only as white corn was for people and yellow corn was for animals. So once he was over to our house for a visit and wanted corn bread for dinner. We were out of white corn meal. So we put about a cup of white popcorn in our electric coffee grinder and let it grind, The corn bread was absolutely wonderful. David.
 
I went to a group fishing tournament/ meet, greet and eat gathering several years ago. An older guy brought a couple pans of corn bread which included vidalia onions and yellow squash. Let me tell you, it was some kind of awsome! When I got the recipe, it was a handful of this, a pinch of that and so on until it looked right. Well I turned my wife loose on it. After several tries, she has it down pat. Dang, I can taste it just thinking about it.
 
I went to a group fishing tournament/ meet, greet and eat gathering several years ago. An older guy brought a couple pans of corn bread which included vidalia onions and yellow squash. Let me tell you, it was some kind of awsome! When I got the recipe, it was a handful of this, a pinch of that and so on until it looked right. Well I turned my wife loose on it. After several tries, she has it down pat. Dang, I can taste it just thinking about it.

My momma used to add a big scoop of cooked Winter squash meat to her cornbread, and boy does it make for moist, cake-like awesomeness. I simply shred some hard Winter squash with my cheese grater and add it too the batter raw. Cooks in just fine, and you wouldn't even no it was there if I didn't tell you.....
 
My momma used to add a big scoop of cooked Winter squash meat to her cornbread, and boy does it make for moist, cake-like awesomeness. I simply shred some hard Winter squash with my cheese grater and add it too the batter raw. Cooks in just fine, and you wouldn't even no it was there if I didn't tell you.....

"Cake-like awesomeness". You hit the nail on the head!
 
Mmmmm
cast%20iron%20007.jpg
 
So what is cornbread supposed to be like, I don't have anything to measure it against. I'm mid 40's, never had cornbread til last year and all I have to go by is the different recipes online and there are so many of them. It seems to be like a bottle of wine, some cornbread goes well with different meals.

I've tried recipes with no sugar added, didn't have much taste. Some recipes call for the corn meal to be soaked, others not which leaves it gritty. Bit of brown sugar works well for my personal tastes...
 
Try this:

Grandma’s Corn Pones
Makes 7 corn bread sticks

Ingredients:
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 400F.
Generously grease corn pone pan with shortening and place in oven while it preheats.
In a medium mixing bowl, stir together dry ingredients. In a small mixing bowl, combine milk, egg, and oil. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.
Pour all batter evenly into hot pan. Bake for 20 minutes at 400F.
Serve warm with butter and honey.

I add a little cinnamon to mine. Really good... :glutton:
 
So, I guess the 79 cent Jiffy mix doesn't quite cut it?

---------- Post added at 02:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:23 PM ----------

Here are some oldie corn bread recipes: http://www.atasteofhistory.net/cornbread---the-evolution-of-a-recipe.html

Hoecake
Fighting Old Nep: The Foodways of Enslaved Afro-Marylanders 1634-1864 by Michael Twitty, 2006


1 cup of white stone-ground cornmeal
¾ cup boiling hot water
½ tsp salt
¼ cup of lard, vegetable oil or shortening

Mix the cornmeal and salt in a bowl. Add the boiling water, stir constantly and mix it well and allow the mixture to sit for about ten minutes. Melt the frying fat in the skillet and get it hot, but do not allow it to reach smoking. Two tablespoons of batter can be scooped up to make a hoecake. Form it into a small thin pancake and add to the pan. Fry on each side 2-3 minutes until firm and lightly brown. Set on paper towels to drain and serve immediately once all the hoecakes have been cooked.
 
There you go! "I’ll tell you . . . that corn bread!” too before Mr. Parker's time.

Unfortunately the recipe has been severely altered. "white stone ground" is a real stretch, the measurements were added even though they did not have measuring cups or spoons and they sure didn't have Crisco.

Delete the BS and it is real food.

Hilditch
 
There you go! "I’ll tell you . . . that corn bread!” too before Mr. Parker's time.

Unfortunately the recipe has been severely altered. "white stone ground" is a real stretch, the measurements were added even though they did not have measuring cups or spoons and they sure didn't have Crisco.

Delete the BS and it is real food.

Hilditch

Haha! You're kinda hardcore, ain'tcha?

Is this one more to your liking?

Corn Meal Bread
The Virginia Housewife by Mary Randolph, 1824


Rub a piece of butter the size of an egg into a pint of corn meal, make a batter with two eggs and some new milk, add a spoonful of yeast, set it by the fire an hour to rise, butter little pans and bake it.
 
Wonderful! I need to get a fire going tomorrow for a gulf red snapper and some baked beets. I will add this recipe and bake them in my almost BSR corn stick pan over the fire. I'll go easy on the yeast 'cause that recipe wasn't talking Red Star, but a home grown yeast starter and I already smell something good.

Me hardcore? I just keep being amazed at how good the pre-WWII recipes are when cooked correctly. Simple, not too many different flavors, and mouth watering all in themselves. Most everybody out there who can turn on a stove thinks they can make a recipe better by adding, deleting or changing all or something from a good basic recipe. Does wheat flour and white sugar enhance the flavor of cornbread? Stupid people think so so Jiffy makes them happy. I don't waste my time talking to these folks. Hardcore is one of the nicer things people have called me.

Hilditch
 
Wonderful! I need to get a fire going tomorrow for a gulf red snapper and some baked beets. I will add this recipe and bake them in my almost BSR corn stick pan over the fire. I'll go easy on the yeast 'cause that recipe wasn't talking Red Star, but a home grown yeast starter and I already smell something good.

Me hardcore? I just keep being amazed at how good the pre-WWII recipes are when cooked correctly. Simple, not too many different flavors, and mouth watering all in themselves. Most everybody out there who can turn on a stove thinks they can make a recipe better by adding, deleting or changing all or something from a good basic recipe. Does wheat flour and white sugar enhance the flavor of cornbread? Stupid people think so so Jiffy makes them happy. I don't waste my time talking to these folks. Hardcore is one of the nicer things people have called me.

Hilditch

So, you don't think that sugar was added to corn bread because somebody tried it way back when, and told their neighbor who tried it, who told the women at church about it, and word spread like wildfire about how great it made their plain ol' cornbread taste? :D
 
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