East Texas Cornbread: A photo essay

marjorie says...

I don't know what it is about the passing of winter, but I invariably start getting homesick with the first signs of spring, which there certainly are plenty of out in our yard. And this week its got me thinking of my mothers food. I thought I'd show y'all how to make my mother's cornbread. I don't think I've ever been home when there wasn't a skillet of this cornbread ready to be had in my mother's kitchen. Invariably, there will also be a pot of pinto beans .

And, on occasion, black eyed peas--which is what I had a hankering for this weekend. My mom's name, by the way, is Ruth Ann.

Now, my mom calls this cornbread her mother's cornbread.
My grandmother's name was Tess. She raised ten kids on a farm in East Texas (yes, that is where I am from, as opposed to "Texas") and according to my mother baked an awful lot. I wish I had experienced more of my grandmother's cooking, but alas, I have to say that in my mind this recipe will always belong to my mother. But it's sure nice to contemplate the continuity.


So, this is a dry cornbread cooked in an iron skillet and turned half way through. Turning it gives it a nice crispy crust pretty much all around. It goes really well with beans or just about any other thing you might want to sop up. I love it. Here are the ingredients:

You take .75 cup each of corn meal and flour, one egg, .5 tsp baking soda, 1.5 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. salt, 1 tbsp. vegetable oil, and you eyeball the buttermilk.

Put it all in a bowl.















Mix it!













Now, according to mom, in order to flip the cornbread (which is essential) you got to use an iron skillet. It just doesn't work otherwise. You heat up some oil in the skillet and sprinkle in some cornmeal before you put the batter in.











Then you pour in the batter and cook it on 400 degrees for about 20-30 minutes.








When the top gets a little brown, you pull it out and flip it. On the left here, I've pulled it out and am about to flip it.










And then you can see the bottom side after I've flipped it (check out the pot of black-eyed peas, ready to go!). Flipping it, as you can imagine, is an acquired skill. I think I might have been just a tad premature in this case, but I'm still working on it. That's all I can really say about that.




My final cornbread in the skillet picture didn't turn out, so I had to take another one after the cornbread had already, um, been dug into! As you can see, after re-flipping it upon taking it out a final time, the top has an excellent crust, exactly the way it should be.

And this is how I like to eat it...

Don't forget the pepper sauce!

My mother says that she's never thought her cornbread was as good as her mother's. Well, I don't know what to say about that, other than that I sure like the cornbread I grew up with. And I can certainly say that my cornbread isn't as good as my mom's. In the end, maybe its just simply all about cornbread being made by your mother that makes it so darn good.

I'm sure that when reading through this, my mom and maybe my sisters, are recognizing that black skillet without the handle. Yeah, I grew up with it and I snagged it--thanks mom! As this photo-essay demostrates, I am a total sentimentalist.

Finally, not to leave my dad, Jerry, completely out of this lovefest...
what in the *world* you ask is this:

Well, that's what I think of as my dad's snack, and I figure just about everyone who grew up in the South will recognize it for what it is: cornbread in a glass of buttermilk. And that, folks, is definitely an acquired taste!