Making Cornbread

When it is winter and the house is cold

stir up some bread and warm your soul

When it is springtime and your lettuce is new

Hope's in the air and bread satisfies to your toes

When it is summer and the heat sticks to your skin

Still, what can you do? The okra is in.

When it is fall, the leaves turning red and gold

How else can you rest without warm bread and buttermilk?

Whatever the season, no matter the reason,

Cornbread will warm you and stir you and satisfy you.

Cornbread is fine, no matter what the time;

So hop on in there and learn to enjoy

Not just the eating but the stirring it up

Now that’s a call to being that begs you to begin!

Making a Mess

I remember cornbread being one of the first breads of which I ate every bite. I remember not wanting to eat much of anything when I was small, that's probably why I can hear all their words. But I remember cornbread clearly. It is one of my Daddy's favorite things to eat; I think that was why it was the first thing Momma learned when she was first married.

So Daddy tells the story that He taught Momma to make cornbread, Momma tells the story that she learned to cook by cooking cornbread. I don't really know, all I am sure of is I tried and tried to make Mommas cornbread; without success, you may already have guessed.

We lived in a little four room house that grew to a five room (six, counting the bath) on 26th street, Birmingham, Al. until I was twele years old. The neighbors’ right next to us did not have any children, I cannot recall their name. I do remember Muetta, she was our cocker spaniel that only loved Daddy, and Muetta came from the neighbor's when their cocker had puppies. However, the neighbor would smell Momma baking cornbread and come to the fence and call..."Marjorie! Are you making cake?" and Momma would laugh and give him a piece. It's the truth too; it did taste like cake, you just wanted the bread and butter, oh my it was so good.

But when I moved out on my own, so far away, and couldn't go home, it was over 1000 miles away, and then I began to try and make Momma's cornbread. I had her recipe, what could go wrong? Wrong! Everything went wrong!

This is what I eventually came to describe as my recipe, I take it with me whenever a pot luck is called for...and being a nurse, eating is called for OFTEN!

Try it and enjoy.

My Cornbread Is Not Momma's Cornbread

Set oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit, put a tablespoon of Crisco in your 8 inch cast iron skillet, stick it in the oven and as it melts put your bread together:

Dry Ingredients:

One half cup soft bread flour (currently I am loving Gold Medal but White Lily is the best standby)

One half cup cornmeal (does not matter, I currently am loving fresh mealed, stone ground in the lovely cloth bag)

One half teaspoon salt

One tablespoon of baking powder

Wet Ingredients:

One egg

3/4th cup buttermilk

Two large scoops of sour cream

One cup grated cheese (I like cheddar, sharp, Monterey, colby...any of the milder cheese)

one small can of chopped mild green chilies (I can only do it this way for pot lucks...the taste reminds hubby so much of Tucson and green corn tamales he begs me not to add it...terrible to see a grown man cry...)

Procedure For Stirring It Up:

Sift the flour, stir in cornmeal, salt, baking powder. In separate smaller bowl briskly stir egg, buttermilk, sour cream and the chilies. Stir all this much as much as you'd like.

Pour all the wet into the dry and stir again, it DOES NOT matter how long you stir it up!! I know, I know, any self respecting southerner will tell you to stir only enough to mix wet into dry ingredients(I think its a foil tactic)..at any rate, never mind, keep stirring.

Now finally: Take the cast iron skillet out of the oven, all the crisco is melted, see? add, oh, almost all of it (the oil) to your batter and swirl the rest of the oil around in the skillet to coat the sides. Now you get to watch the hot crisco and your batter as it bubbles away; now stir that all up, pour it into the cast iron skillet and leave it in the 450 degree oven for 20 to 25 minute.

MOMENT OF TRUTH

Everyone down here says if you have "Done it right" then your cornbread will not stick to your skillet when your dump it out onto your plate.

Baloney I say...whether the top comes off or not, as long as after 25 minutes the top sounds hollow and you fork comes out clean...eat it up, otherwise leave it in another ten or so...doesn’t matter how long it takes...cornbread is worth the wait.

Forgot Something:

I have to add another explanation here...the "top" of the cornbread while it is in the oven is the part you see, but once you dump it out onto the plate? then the bottom becomes the "top" ha just like magic!

That is why when you see a plate of cornbread

the so-called Top is flat!

Just an interesting but little known fact!

Final Note:

Even if the top is toasty,

even if the bottom is crumbly,

what does it matter, who will see...

The ones who truly matter know that cornbread is magic, and eating it brings a bit of that old magic right inside to you!