Perspectives on Cornbread
I've really grown weary of seeing recipes for Southern cornbread on the internet that are not Southern cornbread. People make cornbread different. I accept that. But when they put sugar in it and call it Southern Cornbread...it irritates me.
It saddens me that many people use these recipes and think they are cooking Southern cornbread, when they are not. If you like that kind of cornbread, fine! Just don't call it Southern Cornbread!
My views on cornbread were developed from being born and raised in the Deep South. And here's my pet peeves:
Pet Peeve #1:
How do you spell it: I don't know what Webster says, but it's cornbread, NOT corn bread. Most Southerners spell cornbread as one word, not two.
Pet Peeve #2:
Sugar in Cornbread: Southern cornbread is NOT SWEET! It does NOT contain sugar. Southern cornbread is bread to accompany a meal. It is not dessert. It is not cake.
Pet Peeve #3:
Recipes that use equal parts of corn meal and flour: The flour is in cornbread just to hold it together and give it body. Cornbread should be crumbly. Too much flour makes it cake-like in texture and detracts from the corn meal flavor. A good mixture is about 1/4 cup flour to 1 cup corn meal.
Pet Peeve #4:
Yellow corn meal vs. white corn meal: Yellow corn meal is fine for tamale pie but not in cornbread. I don't know the difference, other than color, but white corn meal seems to have a better texture. Besides, yellow cornbread looks funny. (Again, it looks like cake, rather than bread). Nearly all recipes on the internet call for yellow corn meal...and some Southerners prefer it. But where I grew up, yellow cornbread was not considered "Southern". To prove my point, order cornbread the next time you eat in a restaurant. What color is it? Yellow! Now, ask yourself, have you ever found real Southern cornbread in a restaurant?
Pet Peeve #5:
Cornbread shape...muffins, uggggh!: To me, Southern cornbread should be cooked only two ways. Round or pawns, both cooked in cast iron.
ROUND: The round shape, of course, comes from the shape of a regular cast iron skillet. This is the most common way to cook cornbread
PAWNS: Pawns are also called corn sticks or corncob cornbread. It is made using a cast iron pan that shapes the batter into sticks resembling corncobs.
No Southerner makes cornbread in a "muffin" shape. That's "restaurant cornbread". (Just my opinion).
I could think of a couple more pet peeves, but since I've probably already offended some, guess I'll stop here. If you happen to be one of the offended, hey...it's only cornbread!
Here's our real Southern Cornbread Recipe.
Ken webmaster
www.olsouthrecipes.com