Cornbread is a Southern staple, a tradition that spans generations.
Many cornbread cooks use cast-iron skillets or cornstick pans that have been passed down from mothers, grandmothers, even great-grandmothers.Cornbread has many variations but two styles - white cornbread and yellow cornbread.
Linda Carman, director of consumer affairs and test kitchens at Nashville-based Martha White Foods, says, "Southern cornbread is made with white corn meal, which means it's made from white corn. Yellow corn meal comes from yellow corn . . . I grew up in Cullman (Ala.) and I never ate any yellow cornbread."
Carman recalls that her mother "always made the very same cornbread every day. We'd have several vegetables, and maybe some meat, but always cornbread. She made her cornbread in a big iron skillet. The cornbread was very thin and crisp all over. We liked all that crunchy part . . . She cut it in wedges and it was wonderful."
But she says, "All these years of reading and talking about corn-bread, I've never found a definitive method."
Variations on the cornbread theme include corncakes and corn light bread. The latter is made in a loaf pan with buttermilk, and is "very, very dense and very sweet," Carman says.
There are some basic differences between Southern corn-bread and what many people call "Yankee" cornbread.
Southern cornbread, besides being made from white corn meal, has very little sugar in it - between a teaspoon and a tablespoon. And it is made with buttermilk. Typically it is made in a preheated oven, with a skillet that has been preheated.
Carman says Yankee cornbread usually contains half yellow cornmeal and half flour. It is sweet, having been made with sugar, and contains more eggs.
"People in the South who make cornbread every day usually use self-rising corn meal, because it amounts to a pre-mix that already has the baking powder and salt in it," she says.
Martha White is second to Quaker Oats Co. in production of corn meal. The company's distribution is limited to the South and parts of the Midwest, but Carman notes that these are regions where shoppers often buy five pounds of corn meal per week.
White corn meal is the bigger seller, but she says that during the past few years she has noticed "people that I consider traditional Southern cooks buying yellow corn meal because it looks a bit different, and it may taste a little different."
One tip she offers when making cornbread is this: Be sure the batter is pourable, similar to pancake batter. "If it's too thin, it won't get done. If it's dry, it's going to be dry and crumbly."
Jo Ellen O'Hara is a staff writer for the Birmingham (Ala.) News
MOM'S CRISPY CORNBREAD
3 tablespoons vegetable shortening or oil
1 egg
1/2 cup milk or 3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup water
1 and one-fourth cups Martha White self-rising corn meal mix
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place shortening in 10-inch skillet and put skillet in oven to heat. (It will take only 4 to 5 minutes to heat. Watch closely: Grease will ignite if overheated.) Beat egg in medium mixing bowl. Add milk, water and corn meal; stir to blend. Batter should be fairly thin; add more water if necessary. Remove skillet from oven. Carefully pour most of the hot shortening into batter; stir quickly. Pour batter into hot skillet. Return to oven and bake 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Turn out onto plate, leaving crisp brown bottom crust up. Cut into wedges.
Note from Linda Carman: This cornbread is thin and crisp, traditionally served with fresh vegetables in the summer, dried peas and beans or soups and stews in the winter.
WAYNE'S CORNBREAD
2 cups self-rising corn meal
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup oil
4 teaspoons flour
11/2 cups buttermilk
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine corn meal, egg, oil, flour and buttermilk in bowl; mix well. Pour into greased cast-iron skillet. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.
(Makes 8 servings)
From "Golden Goodies"
HEAVENLY HUSH PUPPIES
1 cup white corn meal
1 tablespoon flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 medium onion, minced
1 egg, beaten
6 tablespoons milk
oil for deep frying
Combine corn meal, flour, baking powder, salt and soda in bowl. Add onion, buttermilk and egg; mix well. Drop by tablespoonsful into 375-degree oil. Deep-fry until golden brown. Hush puppies may be fried with fish.
(Makes 24 hush puppies)
From "Golden Goodies"