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Few foods are as quintessential to American home cooking as cornbread, with treasured recipes passed down from generation to generation. Cornbread dates back to the early American Indians who mixed dried, ground corn with water and salt to form a simple bread. The European settlers quickly learned to grow corn as the Indians did and made cornbread a staple of their diet too. During the Civil War, cornbread was common on both sides of the Mason Dixon line. Corn being plentiful, soldiers could carry flat disks of cornbread in their knapsacks to eat while on the move and their families back home had cornmeal even if they didn’t have much else.

Over time, cooks branched out and tried different ways to make cornbread. In the North, cooks often added some type of sweetener to their cornbread but cooks in the South used bacon grease or cracklings to flavor their cornbread. Southern cooks also preferred white cornmeal, Northern cooks used yellow, while cooks in the Southwest used blue cornmeal and might add cheese and hot peppers. Cornbread can be fried, baked in a skillet or in special pans to make sticks or pones. Few foods have as many recipes or stir up so much controversy among cooks as cornbread.

Like many people in the South, I grew up eating fried potatoes, boiled cabbage and beans with cornbread. My mother would sometimes make cornbread soup on a cold day by crumbling cornbread into a pan of milk, heating it and adding lots of black pepper. To this day, my favorite way to eat cornbread is to crumble cornbread into a tall glass and fill it with cold milk. My father taught me that the only way to make good cornbread is to use Aunt Jemima’s white cornmeal and to heat the cast iron skillet in the oven with a bit of bacon grease until it is smoking hot. Then you must sprinkle some dry cornmeal over the hot grease before you pour in the batter. His cornbread was always the best; crispy on the outside and moist inside. He never looked at a recipe; he had it down to an art form.

I must admit it took me many years to learn to make cornbread just like my Dad. As a child, I loved to “help” him cook but in reality I was probably more of a hinderance. Since he never wrote anything down, I tried to do it from memory but finally my sister gave me a recipe that she had written down while watching him. Here is my Dad’s version of cornbread which is perfect in my opinion.

Daddy’s Cornbread

Beat 1 egg with 1 tsp. salt. Add 1 1/2 cups buttermilk and a scant 1/4 tsp. baking soda and 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder. Add cornmeal (about 1 1/2 cups) until a spoon drawn through the batter leaves a line for 2 seconds. Add water if the batter is too thick. Put 1 Tbsp. bacon grease or canola oil in a cast iron skillet. Put skillet in the oven and heat to 450. When oven is hot, sprinkle a bit of cornmeal in the skillet before adding batter. Cook about 25 minutes or until lightly yellowish brown on top and firm, not mushy when pressed with your finger. Let cool a minute, then invert onto a serving plate.

There are so many interesting cornbread recipes nowadays in addition to the classics that make fine eating. I make broccoli cornbread to serve with barbecue or fried fish. My father would roll over in his grave if I put sugar or sweet milk in his cornbread but I believe he would have enjoyed the following recipe for sweet potato cornbread that my sister found. Spread it with butter and honey and call it dessert, this cornbread is so good there won’t be any leftovers!

Sweet Potato Cornbread

2 cups self-rising cornmeal mix

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 1/2 cups milk

1 cup mashed, cooked sweet potato

1/4 cup melted butter

1 large egg, beaten

Whisk together all ingredients, until dry ingredients are moistened. Do not over stir. Spoon batter into a greased 8 inch cast iron skillet or baking pan. Bake at 425 for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

However you make it, please don’t use a mix! Cornbread is easy to make and using a mix is committing a cooking sacrilege.