Cornbread is a
quick bread
Quick bread is any bread leavened with a chemical leavening agent rather than a biological one like yeast or sourdough starter. An advantage of quick breads is their ability to be prepared quickly and reliably, without requiring the time-consumi ...
made with
cornmeal
Cornmeal is a meal (coarse flour) or a cell membrane ground from dried corn. It is a common staple food, and is ground to coarse, medium, and fine consistencies, but not as fine as wheat flour can be.Herbst, Sharon, ''Food Lover's Companion'', ...
, associated with the
cuisine of the Southern United States
The cuisine of the Southern United States encompasses diverse food traditions of several regions, including Tidewater, Appalachian, Lowcountry, Cajun, Creole, and Floribbean cuisine. In recent history, elements of Southern cuisine have sprea ...
, with origins in
Native American cuisine
Indigenous cuisine of the Americas includes all cuisines and food practices of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Contemporary Native peoples retain a varied culture of traditional foods, along with the addition of some post-contact foods ...
. It is an example of
batter bread
Batter bread is bread made with a substantial liquid-to- flour ratio, so that the dough is a batter. It is known for its ease of preparation.
Batter bread is a staple food of the American South. Batter bread can be made with wheat flour, cor ...
. Dumplings and pancakes made with finely ground cornmeal are staple foods of the
Hopi
The Hopi are a Native American ethnic group who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona, United States. As of the 2010 census, there are 19,338 Hopi in the country. The Hopi Tribe is a sovereign nation within the Unite ...
people in Arizona. The
Hidatsa
The Hidatsa are a Siouan people. They are enrolled in the federally recognized Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. Their language is related to that of the Crow, and they are sometimes considered a parent t ...
people of the Upper Midwest call baked cornbread ''naktsi''.
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
and
Seneca
Seneca may refer to:
People and language
* Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname
* Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America
** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people
Places Extrat ...
tribes enrich the basic batter, adding
chestnuts
The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.
The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce.
The unrelated ...
, sunflower seeds, apples or berries, and sometimes combining beans or potatoes with the cornmeal. Modern versions of cornbread are usually
leavened
Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour (usually wheat) and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made food ...
by
baking powder
Baking powder is a dry chemical leavening agent, a mixture of a carbonate or bicarbonate and a weak acid. The base and acid are prevented from reacting prematurely by the inclusion of a buffer such as cornstarch. Baking powder is used to increase ...
.
History
Native people in the Americas began using corn (
maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
) and ground corn as food thousands of years before Europeans arrived in the New World. First domesticated in Mexico around six thousand years ago, corn was introduced to what is now the United States between three thousand and one thousand years ago.
Native cooks developed a number of recipes based on corn, including cornbread, that were later adopted by European settlers and enslaved African people—especially those who lived in Southern colonies. Aside from eating corn on the cob, Native people also mixed corn kernels with lye to produce
hominy
Hominy (Spanish: maíz molido; literally meaning "milled corn") is a food produced from dried maize (corn) kernels that have been treated with an alkali, in a process called nixtamalization ( is the Nahuatl word for "hominy"). "Lye hominy" is a ...
through an ancient process called
nixtamalization
Nixtamalization () is a process for the preparation of corn, or other grain, in which the grain is soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, usually limewater (but sometimes aqueous alkali metal carbonates), washed, and then hulled. The ter ...
. Both hominy and unprocessed corn were then ground up to varying degrees to make dishes like ''sofkee'' (a corn-based soup or drink) and grits or to make
cornflour
Cornflour may refer to:
* Cornflour (in the UK), corn starch, from the endosperm of the kernel of the corn (maize) grain
* Corn flour (in the US and elsewhere), very finely ground cornmeal, ground from dried maize
See also
* Flour
* Starch
* Gl ...
. Frequently, cornflour was, and continues to be, used to make various cornbreads, like corn or ash pone,
tamale
A tamale, in Spanish tamal, is a traditional Mesoamerican dish made of masa, a dough made from nixtamalized corn, which is steamed in a corn husk or banana leaf. The wrapping can either be discarded prior to eating or used as a plate. Tamale ...
s,
arepa
''Arepa'' () is a type of food made of ground maize dough stuffed with a filling, eaten in the northern region of South America since pre-Columbian times, and notable primarily in the cuisine of Colombia and Venezuela, but also present in the cuis ...
s, and
tortillas
A tortilla (, ) is a thin, circular unleavened flatbread originally made from maize hominy meal, and now also from wheat flour. The Aztecs and other Nahuatl speakers called tortillas ''tlaxcalli'' (). First made by the indigenous peoples of M ...
. In contrast, cornmeal tends to be coarser than cornflour and is produced by grinding dry, raw corn grains. Besides cornbread, Native people also used cornmeal and hominy to make grits and alcoholic beverages, such as the Andean ''
chicha
''Chicha'' is a fermented (alcoholic) or non-fermented beverage of Latin America, emerging from the Andes and Amazonia regions. In both the pre- and post-Spanish conquest periods, corn beer (''chicha de jora'') made from a variety of maize land ...
''.
Although Native people in the Americas first cultivated corn, it was introduced in West Africa by European traders shortly after contact through the
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...
, and quickly became a major staple in African cooking.
Cornbread dishes like ''kush'', for example, in
Senegambia
The Senegambia (other names: Senegambia region or Senegambian zone,Barry, Boubacar, ''Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade'', (Editors: David Anderson, Carolyn Brown; trans. Ayi Kwei Armah; contributors: David Anderson, American Council of Le ...
and
the Sahel represent the transference of cuisine and culture that occurred across the Atlantic Ocean. Cornbread has become a "cornerstone" of cuisine within the southeastern United States as well as being featured on the plates of African Americans, Euro-Americans, and Native people alike.
In its earliest developments in the American colonies, cornbread was a simple combination of ground cornmeal and water that was then stirred together and baked over an open fire or in a hearth.
At this point in its history, cornbread's role in Southern cuisine emerged out of necessity. Although white farmers in the Northeast and Midwest could grow wheat and rye, the heat and humidity of the South made European wheat wither and turn rancid.
Debate
In the 1800s, the addition of other ingredients, such as
buttermilk
Buttermilk is a fermented dairy drink. Traditionally, it was the liquid left behind after churning butter out of cultured cream. As most modern butter in western countries is not made with cultured cream but uncultured sweet cream, most mod ...
, eggs,
baking soda
Sodium bicarbonate (IUPAC name: sodium hydrogencarbonate), commonly known as baking soda or bicarbonate of soda, is a chemical compound with the formula NaHCO3. It is a salt composed of a sodium cation ( Na+) and a bicarbonate anion ( HCO3−) ...
, baking powder, and pig products (rendered bacon and ham hog fat),greatly changed the texture and flavor of earlier iterations of cornbread, making it much more similar to the version that is eaten today.
Although those ingredients were introduced in the 1800s to improve the texture and taste of cornbread, there are two other common ingredients that were excluded from most recipes until the 1900s: sugar and wheat flour.
As traditional stone mills were replaced with more-efficient steel roller mills in the 20th century, the quality of cornmeal was degraded. The heat from the steel rollers detracted from the corn kernel's natural sweetness and flavor and reduced the particle size of the cornmeal produced.
As a result, newer cornbread recipes adapted, adding sugar and wheat flour to compensate for the reduced sweetness and structural integrity of the cornmeal. In addition, the introduction of steel roller mills ushered in a new look to cornmeal; the new cornmeal tended to be yellow, whereas the old-fashioned stone ground cornmeal in the coastal South had been traditionally white. Following the proliferation of the more finely-ground yellow cornmeal, debates arose surrounding sweet vs. savory cornbread and white vs. yellow cornmeal—debates which still occur among cornbread eaters and cookers today. The importance of these differences for some cooks and eaters cannot be understated; in 1950, for example, Francine J. Parr of Houma, Louisiana, posted a desperate headline in the ''Times-Picayune'', "Who's Got Coarse Grits?," further explaining, "The only grits we can get is very fine and no better than mush. In short, I'm advertising for some grocer or other individual selling coarse grits to drop me a line."
Like Parr, some Southerners still prefer the traditional white cornmeal.
Types of cornbread
Cornbread is a popular item in
Southern cooking
The cuisine of the Southern United States encompasses diverse food traditions of several regions, including Tidewater, Appalachian, Lowcountry, Cajun, Creole, and Floribbean cuisine. In recent history, elements of Southern cuisine have sprea ...
and is enjoyed by many people for its texture and aroma. Cornbread can be baked, fried, or (rarely) steamed. Steamed cornbread is mushy, chewier, and more like cornmeal
pudding
Pudding is a type of food. It can be either a dessert or a savoury (salty or spicy) dish served as part of the main meal.
In the United States, ''pudding'' means a sweet, milk-based dessert similar in consistency to egg-based custards, ins ...
than what most consider to be traditional cornbread. Cornbread can also be baked into corn cakes.
Baked cornbread
![BlueCornbread](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/BlueCornbread.JPG)
Cornbread is a common bread in
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
cuisine, particularly associated with the South and Southwest, as well as being a traditional staple for populations where
wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
flour was more expensive. Cornbread, especially leftovers, can be eaten as a
breakfast
Breakfast is the first meal of the day usually eaten in the morning. The word in English refers to breaking the fasting period of the previous night.Anderson, Heather Arndt (2013)''Breakfast: A History'' AltaMira Press. Various "typical" or "t ...
. It is also widely eaten with
barbecue
Barbecue or barbeque (informally BBQ in the UK, US, and Canada, barbie in Australia and braai in South Africa) is a term used with significant regional and national variations to describe various cooking methods that use live fire and smoke t ...
and
chili con carne
Chili con carne (also spelled chilli con carne or chile con carne and shortened to chili or chilli; ), meaning " chili with meat", is a spicy stew containing chili peppers (sometimes in the form of chili powder), meat (usually beef), tomatoes an ...
. In parts of the southern and southwestern United States, cornbread, accompanied by
pinto bean
The pinto bean () is a variety of common bean (''Phaseolus vulgaris''). In Spanish they are called , literally "painted bean" (compare pinto horse). It is the most popular bean by crop production in Northern Mexico and the Southwestern United Stat ...
s, has been a common lunch for many people. It is still a common side dish for many
supper
Supper was originally a secondary lighter evening meal. The main meal of the day, called dinner, used to be served closer to what is known as lunchtime, around the middle of the day, but crept later over the centuries, mostly over the course of ...
s, often served with
butter
Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condiment ...
. Cornbread crumbs are also used in some poultry stuffings or dressing as it is called; cornbread stuffing is particularly associated with
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden and ...
turkeys.
In the United States, northern and southern cornbread are different because they generally use different types of corn meal and varying degrees of sugar and eggs. Southern cornbread has traditionally been made with little or no sugar and smaller amounts of flour (or no flour), with northern cornbread being sweeter and more cake-like. Southern cornbread traditionally used white cornmeal and buttermilk. Other ingredients such as
pork rinds
Pork rind is the culinary term for the skin of a pig. It can be used in many different ways.
It can be rendered, fried in fat, baked, or roasted to produce a kind of pork cracklings (US) or scratchings (UK); these are served in small piece ...
are sometimes used. Cornbread is occasionally crumbled and served with cold milk or clabber (buttermilk), similar to cold cereal. In
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
,
Mexican influence has spawned a hearty cornbread made with fresh or creamed corn kernels and
jalapeño
The jalapeño ( , , ) is a medium-sized chili pepper pod type cultivar of the species ''Capsicum annuum''. A mature jalapeño chili is long and hangs down with a round, firm, smooth flesh of wide. It can have a range of pungency, with Scovi ...
peppers and topped with shredded cheese. Cornbread is typically eaten with
molasses
Molasses () is a viscous substance resulting from refining sugarcane or sugar beets into sugar. Molasses varies in the amount of sugar, method of extraction and age of the plant. Sugarcane molasses is primarily used to sweeten and flavour foods ...
in the southern states and with
butter
Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condiment ...
and honey in the northern states of America.
![Yellow cornbread](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Yellow_cornbread.jpg)
Skillet-fried or skillet-baked cornbread (often simplified to cornbread or skillet bread) is a traditional staple in the rural United States, especially in the South. This involves heating
bacon
Bacon is a type of salt-cured pork made from various cuts, typically the belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central ingredient (e.g., the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sand ...
drippings,
lard
Lard is a semi-solid white fat product obtained by rendering the fatty tissue of a pig.[Lard]
entry in the o ...
or other oil in a heavy,
well-seasoned cast iron skillet in an oven, and then pouring a batter made from cornmeal,
egg
An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...
, and milk directly into the hot grease. The mixture is returned to the oven to bake into a large, crumbly and sometimes very moist cake with a crunchy crust. This bread tends to be dense and is usually served as an accompaniment rather than as a bread served as a regular course. In addition to the skillet method, such cornbread also may be made in sticks, muffins, loaves or baking pans.
A slightly different variety, cooked in a simple baking dish, is associated with northern U.S. cuisine. The batter for northern-style cornbread is very similar to and sometimes interchangeable with that of a corn
muffin
A muffin is an individually portioned baked product, however the term can refer to one of two distinct items: a part-raised flatbread (like a crumpet) that is baked and then cooked on a griddle (typically unsweetened), or an (often sweetened) ...
. A typical contemporary northern U.S. cornbread recipe contains half wheat
flour
Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many culture ...
, half cornmeal,
milk
Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digestion, digest solid food. Immune factors and immune ...
or
buttermilk
Buttermilk is a fermented dairy drink. Traditionally, it was the liquid left behind after churning butter out of cultured cream. As most modern butter in western countries is not made with cultured cream but uncultured sweet cream, most mod ...
,
eggs
Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...
,
leavening agent
In cooking, a leavening agent () or raising agent, also called a leaven () or leavener, is any one of a number of substances used in doughs and batters that cause a foaming action (gas bubbles) that lightens and softens the mixture. An alterna ...
,
salt
Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...
, and usually
sugar
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...
, resulting in a bread that is somewhat lighter and sweeter than the traditional southern version.
Unlike fried variants of cornbread, baked cornbread is a
quick bread
Quick bread is any bread leavened with a chemical leavening agent rather than a biological one like yeast or sourdough starter. An advantage of quick breads is their ability to be prepared quickly and reliably, without requiring the time-consumi ...
that is dependent on an egg-based protein matrix for its structure (though the addition of wheat flour adds gluten to increase its cohesiveness). The baking process
gelatinizes the starch in the cornmeal, but still often leaves some hard starch to give the finished product a distinctive sandiness not typical of breads made from other grains.
Crackling bread
A primarily Southern dish consisting of cornbread with
pork cracklings inside. It can be prepared with any method but a skillet is most common as it allows for making the cornbread crispier.
Corn pone
Corn pone (sometimes referred to as "Indian pone") is a type of cornbread made from a thick, malleable cornmeal dough (which is usually egg-less and milk-less) and cooked in a specific type of iron pan over an open fire (such as a frontiersman would use), using mostly bacon grease, but later,
butter
Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condiment ...
,
margarine
Margarine (, also , ) is a spread used for flavoring, baking, and cooking. It is most often used as a substitute for butter. Although originally made from animal fats, most margarine consumed today is made from vegetable oil. The spread was orig ...
,
shortening
Shortening is any fat that is a solid at room temperature and used to make crumbly pastry and other food products. Although butter is solid at room temperature and is frequently used in making pastry, the term ''shortening'' seldom refers to bu ...
, or cooking oil. Corn pones are a staple of
Southern U.S. cuisine, and have been discussed or referenced by many American writers, including
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
.
In the
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...
, cornbread baked in a round iron
skillet
A frying pan, frypan, or skillet is a flat-bottomed pan used for frying, searing, and browning foods. It is typically in diameter with relatively low sides that flare outwards, a long handle, and no lid. Larger pans may have a small grab ha ...
, or in a cake pan of any shape, is still referred to as a "pone" of cornbread (as opposed to "
hoe cakes", the term for cornbread fried in pancake style); and when biscuit dough (i.e., "biscuits" in the American sense of the word) is occasionally baked in one large cake rather than as separate biscuits, this is called a "biscuit pone".
The term "corn pone" is sometimes used derogatorily to refer to one who possesses certain rural, unsophisticated peculiarities ("he's a corn pone"), or as an adjective to describe particular rural, folksy or "hick" characteristics (e.g., "corn pone" humor). This pejorative term often is directed at persons from rural areas of the Southern and Midwestern United States. A character in the
Li'l Abner
''Li'l Abner'' is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe. It featured a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished mountain village of Dogpatch, USA. Written and drawn ...
comic strip, General Jubilation T Cornpone, was a mythical Civil War general from
Dogpatch
Dogpatch was the fictional setting of cartoonist Al Capp's classic comic strip ''Li'l Abner'' (1934–1977).
''Li'l Abner'' comic strip
The inhabitants of Dogpatch were mostly lazy hillbillies, who usually wanted nothing to do with progress. ...
known for his retreats and imputed cowardice. President
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
's staffers, who were mostly
Northeastern
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools ...
elites, openly mocked
Texan
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by bo ...
Vice President
A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
's rural speech patterns, referring to Johnson behind his back as "Uncle Cornpone" or "Rufus Cornpone".
Hot water cornbread
Cooked on a rangetop, one frying method involves pouring a small amount of liquid batter made with boiling
water
Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...
and self-rising cornmeal (cornmeal with
soda
Soda or SODA may refer to:
Chemistry
* Some chemical compounds containing sodium
** Sodium carbonate, washing soda or soda ash
** Sodium bicarbonate, baking soda
** Sodium hydroxide, caustic soda
** Sodium oxide, an alkali metal oxide
* Sod ...
or some other chemical leavener added) into a skillet of hot oil, and allowing the crust to turn golden and crunchy while the center of the batter cooks into a crumbly, mushy bread. These small (3-4" diameter) fried breads are soft and very rich. Sometimes, to ensure the consistency of the bread, a small amount of
wheat flour
Wheat flour is a powder made from the grinding of wheat used for human consumption. Wheat varieties are called "soft" or "weak" if gluten content is low, and are called "hard" or "strong" if they have high gluten content. Hard flour, or ''bread ...
is added to the batter. This type of cornbread is often known as "hot water" or "scald meal" cornbread and is unique to the American South.
Johnnycakes
Pouring a batter similar to that of skillet-fried cornbread, but slightly thinner, into hot grease atop a griddle or a skillet produces a
pancake
A pancake (or hotcake, griddlecake, or flapjack) is a flat cake, often thin and round, prepared from a Starch, starch-based batter (cooking), batter that may contain eggs, milk and butter and cooked on a hot surface such as a griddle or fryi ...
-like bread called a
johnnycake
Johnnycake, also known as journey cake, johnny bread, hoecake, shawnee cake or spider cornbread, is a cornmeal flatbread, a type of batter bread. An early American staple food, it is prepared on the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to Jamaica. ...
. While johnnycake often denotes this pancake-like cornbread, it is also used in a scattered sense as a more general term for cornbread, chiefly in the North.
Hushpuppies
A thicker buttermilk-based batter that is deep-fried rather than pan-fried forms the
hushpuppy
A hush puppy (or hushpuppy) is a small, savory, deep-fried round ball made from cornmeal-based batter. Hushpuppies are frequently served as a side dish with seafood and other deep-fried foods.
History
The use of ground maize (corn) in cookin ...
, a common accompaniment to fried
fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...
and other
seafood
Seafood is any form of sea life regarded as food by humans, prominently including fish and shellfish. Shellfish include various species of molluscs (e.g. bivalve molluscs such as clams, oysters and mussels, and cephalopods such as octopus an ...
in the South. Hushpuppy recipes vary from state to state, some including onion seasoning, chopped onions,
beer
Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...
, or
jalapeño
The jalapeño ( , , ) is a medium-sized chili pepper pod type cultivar of the species ''Capsicum annuum''. A mature jalapeño chili is long and hangs down with a round, firm, smooth flesh of wide. It can have a range of pungency, with Scovi ...
s. Fried properly, the hushpuppy will be moist and yellow or white on the inside, while crunchy and light to medium-dark golden brown on the outside. Although Native people ushered corn and cornmeal into African people's diets, African cooks are generally credited with introducing the frying of foods in fats. The combination of Native cornmeal and the African technique of frying, therefore, led to the creation of hushpuppies.
Fried cornbread
![Fried Cornbread - 2019](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Fried_Cornbread_-_2019.jpg)
Alongside other iterations of Native cornbread, the
Lumbee
The Lumbee are a Native American people primarily centered in Robeson, Hoke, Cumberland and Scotland counties in North Carolina. They also live in surrounding states and Baltimore, Maryland.
The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina is a state-rec ...
people in southeastern North Carolina have a unique method of cooking their cornbread. The “fried cornbread” or “frybread” that most Lumbee families serve with meals differs from both hushpuppies and johnnycakes. Prepared with yellow cornmeal, egg, buttermilk, and salt, the cornbread batter is thinly poured into a cast-iron skillet to fry.
As Eric Locklear, a member of the Lumbee tribe and owner of Fuller’s Old-Fashioned BBQ, notes, “It’s got a crunch around it. I mean, it ain’t thick; it don’t look like pancakes. It’s real thin and crunchy”.
After the fried cornbread is made, it is typically served with slices of cheese or collard greens. Glen Hunt, owner of Lumbee Homemade Ice-Cream in North Carolina, states, “You know how the old folks like to eat collards? They like to get a piece of cornbread and dip it in those collards and eat it with their fingers".
In the article, “As We Cooked, We Lived: Lumbee Foodways,” Malinda Maynor Lowery goes on to track the creation of the collard sandwich—a Lumbee special, which features two pieces of fried cornbread with
collard greens
Collard is a group of certain loose-leafed cultivars of ''Brassica oleracea'', the same species as many common vegetables including cabbage ( Capitata group) and broccoli ( Italica group). Collard is a member of the Viridis group of ''Brassica ...
and
fatback
Fatback (also known as streak of lean or streak of fat) is a cut of meat from a domestic pig. It consists of the layer of adipose tissue (subcutaneous fat) under the skin of the back, with or without the skin (pork rind). Fatback is "hard fat ...
meat. Dorsey Hunt, co-owner of Lumbee Homemade Ice-Cream, notes that “
umbee peoplejust started putting
ried cornbread and collardstogether and made a sandwich out of it. …We made the cornmeal fritters, and just put the collards in between it. Put your fatback meat and chow-chow”.
See also
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* – Balkan variant
*
*
Notes and references
External links
* Indians.or
History of cornbread
{{Authority control
Quick breads
American breads
Canadian cuisine
Native American cuisine
Native American cuisine of the Southeastern Woodlands
Cuisine of the Southern United States
Maize dishes
Thanksgiving food
Cuisine of the Southwestern United States