That Perpetual Corn Bread Argument!

I was raised on cornbread and I still love it today as do most other natives of Appalachia. My wife, as I mentioned in my previous post about Shucked Beans, was raised in Wisconsin about halfway between Milwaukee and Green Bay and had never seen many historical Appalachian foods including Shucked Beans, pinto beans, squirrels, hog jaw, banana pudding, and cornbread.  After living 28 years in Appalachia, she loves them all and we eat them often at our house.  

Corn Bread, Photo by Depositphotos

When it comes to cornbread, we start with a small, cast iron skillet and a little olive oil, since we do not eat lard.  We grease the skillet and heat it on a stove top burner as the batter is being mixed.  We use one whole egg, a bit of baking powder, about half and half all purpose flour and cornmeal made from Appalachian Heritage corn and pour the batter in the skillet on the stove top.  When the batter hits the skillet, I like to hear that good sizzle you get from a hot skillet which helps give the bottom crust a good crisp, crunchy bite.  When most of the bubbles on the top of the batter have burst, we put the skillet in the oven at 350% for about 25 minutes.  At the end of that time, we switch the oven from bake to broil, move the rack just under the broiler burner, and watch it closely until it has that good, brown crust about the color of the hide of a "yaller" to ordinary brown dog.  

I like mine with a healthy chunk of butter placed in the middle of the portion.  My wife does not like the butter.  We have it often with homemade soups, pinto beans, shucked beans, and other more clearly Appalachian meals.  But we do not eat it with every meal.  But my wife often mentions a woman with whom she worked for several years who said that when she was growing up her father had to have pinto beans and cornbread on the table at every meal including breakfast.  That is a bit too much for me.  We also will sometimes have hoecakes for breakfast.  For those, we use our regular cornbread recipe but pour the batter in the hot skillet in same manner as you would use to make pancakes.  Cornbread hoecakes will never cook as thinly as wheat pancakes but we both love them with butter and maple syrup, or sometimes sorghum.  I also like to save my last hoecake to eat with a heavy slathering of apple butter.  Hoecakes are called that because they were often eaten for breakfast in homes where there was little food and if you ate two or three or four hoecakes for breakfast you could go to the fields and keep an old fashioned goose neck or "laid" hoe singing at least until lunch time.  Often, in some of those fields, leftover hoecakes were also what they had for lunch.  I also love corn bread and milk as a late night snack just before bed time.  But for an even more interesting snack, or nearly a complete meal try taking a bowl or large glass and dice up a good strong onion, mix the onion and cornbread in the container and pour ice cold buttermilk over it.  Since buttermilk is much thicker than sweet milk, as we called it in Eastern Kentucky, and you need to give it a little time to soak into the bread before you add a bit more buttermilk.  It is an awesome snack and I also like to sprinkle mine with black pepper. 

Throughout this blog post, I have not yet mentioned the "perpetual corn bread argument" which I mentioned in the title.  I am certain that nearly all devoted corn bread eaters already know what the argument is about.  You hear it all over the country wherever anybody cooks and eats corn bread.  Do you or do you not put sugar in your cornbread?  We do not and, Thank God, I was not raised that way.  To me putting sugar in cornbread is a lot asking a native of Milwaukee to refrain from putting a pat of butter on a hamburger.  It is sacrilege to put sugar in cornbread no matter what you think, Dear Reader!  My perpetual response to the perpetual corn bread argument is this:  "If you want to bake a bake a cake, bake a cake.  But don't put sugar in it and try to call it corn bread!" 

Thanksgiving With Family At A State Park Lodge

Today, my wife Candice and I had Thanksgiving Dinner with ten other members of our extended family at the Jenny Wiley State Park Lodge which has recently been refurbished after a major fire.  There were twelve of us at the dinner which had at least a couple of hundred diners during the time we were there.  Apparently, nobody wants to cook a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner anymore.  We represented three generations of our maternal grandparents' descendants.  There were four of us first cousins there from the seven which were raised by our mothers, sisters Mellie Hicks Hicks and Ellen Hicks Terry. Two of that original seven are now dead.  There were three spouses or significant others of that group, one daughter of my cousin Jack Terry, one daughter of my cousin Greg Terry, and several of Jack's grandchildren.  This was the first time many of us in the family had met Greg's daughter, Shay, who suddenly appeared in his life not long ago after finally learning who he biological father is.  Neither of them had known of the identity or existence of the other until very recently.  That, in and of itself, made it an interesting meal. 

The buffet was served in a large dining room, one of two, which must have seated at least a hundred people.  The staff worked constantly and kept drinks refilled, dirty plates bused, and minor requests for information answered.  I am certain they never received, in that kind of setting, anywhere near what they deserved in tips. The standard 18% for large groups would be in order in that setting.  I tried my best to be reasonable with my tip and so did at least one other in our party.  The setting, twelve people spread along the length of a long table, did not do a lot to benefit conversations.  The tables were a bit too close together and the overall layout of the room made traffic to and from the buffet a bit congested.  Salads, vegetables, and meats were on a steam table along the left side of the room with both sides open for self service.  Desserts were on two tables along the perpendicular  wall on two tables with only one side open for self service.  A staff member was on the right side of the room slicing and serving ham and roast beef from another table with heat lamps.  This setup caused too much traffic across the room, back and forth, and sideways.  

The food was generally acceptable but not outstanding by any measure.  When I got to the turkey to serve for my wife Candice, I found a wet mess of shredded turkey in the bottom of a hotel pan.  There were a couple or three dishes on that steam table which kept eliciting questions among strangers to the tune of "do you know what that is".  The salad makings were a bit too few to make a good salad for the person with vegetarian leanings.  The coleslaw was good and made along a traditional Eastern Kentucky recipe.  The green beans came straight out of an institutional can.  The pies, pecan, peanut butter, and pumpkin, were straight out of a box.  The baked Alaska was good and made on the spot.  The roast beef was far overcooked for my taste without a wink of pink in sight.  The ham was minimally acceptable.  Overall, this was a large restaurant buffet designed to minimally please diners who did not have high expectations without minimizing the potential profit from the occasion.  Nearly every time I have eaten at Jenny Wiley State Park Lodge, which is a frequent choice of some of my relatives who live close to it, I have left once again convinced that most of the other state park lodges in which I have eaten do the job better, especially Natural Bridge State Park Lodge.  I nearly always prefer Natural Bridge to other parks and the setting is usually far more picturesque.  

After the dinner, we hung out for a short time in the lodge lobby talking and split up until this coming Saturday when we will get together for a second dinner at the home of a cousin in Prestonsburg which is a much better idea.  I had told a friend in an e-mail today that I would rather eat bologna sandwiches in a genuine family setting with family than a high class buffet in a restaurant setting anytime.  This dinner convinced me I was correct in that statement.  A home cooked meal with shucked beans, hog jaw, ground hog, squirrels, pinto beans, corn bread, cushaw, and hominy would be far better anytime.