Perhaps no other American food has been so fiercely debated, a recipe with few key ingredients, yet the slightest variance elicits strong reactions that cross boundaries of region, race, socio-economics and time. Every corner of the world is represented by their signature bread, through the ages we associate the baguette with France, foccacia with Italy, naan with India, and West Africa with gnome…and nothing is more synonymous with the United States than cornbread.
It’s a complicated food, a Native American inception created from corn, then subsequently absorbed by just about every other group living across the country; African Americans adopting it sans leavening as a hoe cake or corn fritter; or Appalachian mountain folk using nothing more than coarse ground corn, lard, and hot water…all from which countless cultural tributaries flow into modern ideas and technique.
Although it’s beginnings conjure important, mostly difficult stories of struggle, want, and even racism, cornbread has somehow managed to have a positive impact on our cultural, culinary consciousness. Southern food continues to find it’s way, albeit difficult at times, it’s virtue an undisputable emblem and vessel for not only understanding, but also coming to terms with our history.
Almost every family that cooks in the United States has it’s own version of cornbread; my lower Midwestern family ate it slightly sweet alongside a myriad dishes such as white beans with ham hocks and chili, and I especially loved it as a simple, earthy dessert slathered in butter with ribbons of honey. Yet, the further south we go, the less sweet it becomes…in fact, it’s still a point of pride with my wife, born and raised in central Arkansas, and known for saying, “If I wanted sugar in my cornbread, then I’d just eat cake.” It’s a valid perspective that should be continually debated and considered…and if a law was ever created to echo her sentiments, I would have no problem whatsoever ordering Beans and Cake anywhere, anytime.
