What Is 'Real' Cornbread?

Cornbread is a food we still eat everyday. There are lines drawn in the sand over how this food should be made. Geographically, there are a lot of differing opinions over how cornbread should taste. What is “real” cornbread?

Instagram ➧ townsends_official

[cattails]

my great uncle, also Indiana-born in1898, made cornbread with 100% course ground yellow corn meal with no sugar. It was hearty and dense. He served it warm with sorghum molasses drizzled over the top with a pat of butter. To this day, this is my preference.

[j.l.emerson]

I don't know about 'real' cornbread, but the most basic & possibly the oldest and/or original version is hot water cornbread. It has only 3 ingredients: cornmeal, salt & boiling water. You add boiling water to the dry ingredients to get a batter as thick or as thin as you want. Then you fry it in whatever fat you have available. Serve it hot with a dab of butter & maybe some molasses or honey. It's great all by itself & even better served with a pot of beans.

[SittingOnEdgeman]

You're a very brave man for wading into a topic so near and dear to a lot of Southern hearts.

[MichaelUtah]

The real cornbread was the friends and recipes we learned along the way.

[LaPetiteBoulin]

My West Tennessee Cornbread Recipe:
* 1½ cups of Cornmeal
* 2 eggs
* 1¼ cup Milk
* ⅓ cup of Oil -PLUS-
* just enough oil to cover the bottom of a Cast Iron skillet Estimate of 2 Tablespoons
1. Pour enough oil into Cast Iron Skillet that you can cover the bottom. About 2 Tablespoons. Put skillet into oven and preheat to 425°
2. Mix the ingredients together
3. Once skillet and oil is hot; pour mixture in skillet & bake at 425 for about 30 minutes.
This is pretty typical in my area. Please share your recipe because I would always love to try something new.

[eustacetuberson]

Samuel Johnson famously defined "oats" thus: "A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people."

[EmMiller-wudy]

We grew up with cornbread only sweetened with a small amount of maple syrup. Sometimes my mom boiled corn and folded the nibs in. Real cornbread is whatever recipe your family makes with love.

[lochnessmonster]

Usually, my mother mixes cornmeal, salt, and water and makes a pancake batter, pours it into a greased cast iron skillet, and bakes it. Recently, she used butter milk instead of water, added in a can of corn, and fresh minced jalapenos. The best way to describe it is jalapeno corn cake. It was amazing with butter and honey slathered on it.

[adreabrooks]

I love it when I can catch a Townsends video early. This community has always been a tremendously positive one, and watching the View and Like counters go up is tremendously heartening. I love watching it in motion, gathering steam!

[robzinawarriorprincess]

Yes, The Corbread Debate is ferocious here in Middle TN! (sugar vs. no sugar) We're usually pretty polite, but we have strong opinions about food.

[jaxxtheviking]

I will say during a giant snowstorm that my family went through we were without power for 2 weeks we were living off of cornbread food like rabbits and deer we hunted and cooking over a fire in the fireplace for the next 2 weeks it was so cold you could see your breath on all the other rooms but the living rooms. It was rough and made me think about how resilient people were back in the early days. If I had known half of what I’d learned from this channel we would have been living well.thank you for this channel everyone at town sends its truely important work you do

[joannfuhrer]

Growing up cornbread in my house also came out of the little blue box. When I moved to the south, I was introduced to a whole world of new cornbread tastes and textures. They're wonderful, but the blue box will always be a reminder of a wonderful childhood.

[lateciamadethis]

My granny made cornbread almost every day. Biscuits in the morning, cornbread at dinner. No flour in her cornbread, but some baking powder and eggs with milk. No sugar either. It had a gritty, grainy texture and an outstanding flavor.

[jameskniskern]

Around here in Appalachia, if cornbread has sugar in it, its called "cake".
I'll see myself out.

[bor]

I too grew up on Jiffy, and like it still to this day. My palette has simply grown as I get older. What I've noticed i-there is a distincive MasonDixon line in my corn bread(PLEASE, I'm not bein offensive) The more north-the sweeter, more leavened, other flours added. The further south, the more savory, grittier(sometimes even using hominy, aka grits), flatter, more filling ingredients added(bacon, ham, cheeses, jalepenos, other veg etc) LOVE 'EM ALL!!!! (Jiffy still tugs my childhood memories the most)

[HiSummerWasHere]

My grandmother made homemade iron skillet cornbread for almost every meal. She preferred Adam’s brand cornmeal, yellow coarse-ground. And you had to get it from Priester’s Pecans in Fort Deposit, Alabama. The recipe is an egg bread with buttermilk and only a teaspoon of sugar, not enough to be detectable. You heat a drizzle of oil in the pan in the oven while it preheats and then the bread fries on the bottom when you pour the batter in. She also would turn the bread out when it was done, then flip it upside down and put it back in for the last few minutes of baking so the top would also get a little crispy. If she didn’t have buttermilk, she would mix a little lemon juice or vinegar with milk and let it sit for a few minutes, and that’s a good substitute. She also said that her mother used to make fresh biscuits every morning and cornbread every evening. Can you imagine, the house being hot from the oven all day every day in pre-air conditioned Florida?

[robertjacobs]

Townsends is a place of peace and tranquility for me in a chaotic world. Thank you so much! Louise J

[bagder]

Cornbread and baked beans, such a comfort food

[kcurran]

My grandmother AKA "Mommaw" lived in a cabin- a real one- with dovetail 13 inch logs, and made stuff on a wood stove for years. She made her own butter- from her cow- and put the buttermilk in cornbread, using white meal- yellow was for the stock- in cast iron. She had chickens, and Mommaw and Poppaw raised hogs. The grease went into the cornbread, the pan for the cornbread, and it seemed to me, everything else, too. My mom made the bagged mix- usually Martha White - and the crust she made was grainy, thick, and very crispy, - and hard, but worked out well with beans. (Dad ate the buttermilk and cornbread snack before bedtime often.) I watched my neighbor make cornbread and actually fried the batter in cast iron and finished it in the hot oven. Everyone I knew had pintos and fried potatoes with cornbread like that, and often drenched the cornbread with honey or molasses mixed with butter for dessert. I vividly remember the ceremony that one neighbor made mixing the two on his plate before heaping it on a piece of cornbread.

[antjecasarez]

I grew up in Europe and never had cornbread until I met my Texan/Mexican husband. We didn’t eat corn at all, as it was known as animal food. I fell in love with cornbread right away and keep making all different types. My favorite is cornbread baked in a cast iron pan. I first heat up bacon fat and then add the dough. The crispy crust and hearty flavor is divine. I use 2/3 yellow corn meal, 1/3 bread flour, corn kernels, baking powder, a little bit of sugar (just a tiny amount for balance), smoked tallow and spices like cumino, red pepper flakes and ground ginger.