Hoes gotta eat too.
The best way to make cornbread.
“If God had meant for cornbread to have sugar in it, he’d have called it cake”—Mark Twain
Mark Twain famously said many things that he didn’t actually say, incidentally, and I have doubts about the authenticity of this one (for one, Twain almost never used the word cornbread in either Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, preferring the term “corn-pone”), but the sentiment holds.
Why on earth would you want to take something as full of complex flavor as a piece of cornbread, and make it taste like a bad breakfast cereal? Sweet cornbread is like Corn Pops, but with a fine sprinkling of char. Like pork chops and ice cream. Like banana pudding with bacon bits. You might try it for entertainment value, but it’s not anything you actually want to eat as anything but a novelty.
The best cornbread is warm, with a thick, nearly scorched crust. A little dry, to soak up potlikker. Crumbly, to break into a glass and pour buttermilk over. Arguably, the crust is the best part, which makes a corn pancake the best way to enjoy cornbread short of making cornbread waffles.
As it happens, the best cornbread is ridiculously easy to make, as well. All it takes is two ingredients (three if you want it bacony).
- Self-rising cornmeal
- Buttermilk
- Bacon grease
That’s it. Self rising cornmeal is cornmeal, flour, baking powder, and salt. Cornmeal itself doesn’t have much in the way of gluten, so a corn bread without flour will fall apart without something to hold it together, which is why many recipes add an egg into the mix, which will make a batter that doesn’t crumble as easily (but holds together pretty well in the pan).
Technically, you can use regular milk, or even water to make your cornbread, but buttermilk adds an acidity that makes the bread even less sweet. Sweet, as mentioned previously, is the enemy of cornbread, and all good cornbread-eating people.
Not everyone wants bacon grease in their cornbread. You should respect your vegetarian friends, because they are suffering for what they believe. If you believe in moderate indulgence instead of suffering, however, bacon grease adds smokiness, some extra salt, and additional crispness to the outside, and these are all good things.
Why no measurements? I don’t think I’ve ever measured the ingredients in cornbread. I don’t actually know what they would be. You dump your cornmeal into a bowl (say, two cups) and pour a little buttermilk into it. Then you stir, and see if it looks like pancake batter. No? Add more buttermilk. Look, just follow this flowchart:
That said, when I made it last night, it looked like it was almost the same amount of corn meal as it was buttermilk, but the corn meal had been in the freezer, so it may have needed more than normal. Also, if you cook in more than one batch, you’ll need to add more buttermilk before the second batch, because the mixture will start to rise and the starch grains will absorb some buttermilk. This is why there are no measurements.
Heat a flat surface over medium heat. This can be a cast-iron skillet, or a nonstick griddle, or something else. Cast iron IS traditional, but you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference between a cast-iron hoecake and a nonstick griddle hoecake once served.
Pour a ladlefull of batter onto your cooking surface, and let it sit until the top looks dry. Flip it over with a spatula, then cook it another few minutes until the other side is also golden brown. Serve with butterbeans. Or maybe black-eyed peas. Or collards.
