Southern Recipes www.olsouthrecipes.com

That Ain't Southern Cornbread

Allow me, if you will, to vent my frustration over the so-called Southern Cornbread recipes you find on the web.

Here's the scenario:
You see an ad or search results that offers a real, authentic Southern cornbread recipe. You go to the site and it has a Southern sounding name such as "Bubba's Ol' Fashioned, Down Home Southern Recipes". So far, so good. And the site has some Southern looking graphics, such as a moss-draped magnolia tree and a cast iron skillet. Still good. Then you go to the "Real, Authentic, Southern Cornbread recipe" and read the ingredients.

Horror of horrors! They want you to put sugar in your Southern Cornbread! Not only that, it's YELLOW, because they want you to use yellow corn meal.

My views on Southern cornbread are a result of being born and raised in the Deep South. So, let's get this straight. Southern cornbread is not sweet. It is bread, not cake. It is not dessert. It does not contain sugar.

Now, I don't care how you make your cornbread. If you like it sweet, that's O.K. Put sugar in it. But don't call it Southern cornbread! And, don't make it yellow.

Here's my pet peeves:
1. It's cornbread, one word, not corn bread.
2. Southern cornbread should use white corn meal, not yellow. Nearly every recipe on the web calls for yellow corn meal. I don't know why, other than the fact the the recipe is probably written by someone from New Jersey, who has never been South of Philadelphia. I do not know of any good Southern cook that uses yellow corn meal in cornbread.
3. Sugar belongs in iced tea, never in cornbread.
4. Aluminum and glass cookware is for California casseroles not cornbread. Cornbread should always be cooked in a cast iron skillet.
5. Southern cornbread is cooked round, in a skillet, or as pawns. Pawns are also known as corncob or corn sticks. The round shape comes from using a round cast iron skillet and the pawn shape comes from a cast iron pan that forms the bread into the corncob shape. Southern cornbread is never made in muffins! That's restaurant cornbread.
6. Too much flour. Many recipes call for equal parts flour and corn meal. Southern cornbread should be crumbly and carry the corn meal flavor. It should not have a cake-like texture (which results from too much flour). The flour is there only to help hold it together. A good ratio is 1/3 cup flour to 1 cup corn meal.

These are my biggest peeves about what many websites call Southern cornbread. It saddens me that people use these recipes and think they are cooking authentic Southern cornbread, when, in fact, it would not be recognized by any Southerner. You may not agree and I hope I have not offended any sweet cornbread lovers...hey, it's only cornbread.

For a real, authentic Southern cornbread recipe, see www.olsouthrecipes.com/cornbread.html.