Mason-Dixon Recipes

Cornbread

Her corn-cake, in all its varieties of hoe-cake, dodgers, muffins and other species too numerous to mention, was a sublime mystery to all less practiced compounders.

         — Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Uncle Tom's Cabin”

Cornbread is a common bread in United States cuisine, particularly associated with the South and Southwest, as well as being a traditional staple for populations where wheat flour is more expensive. European settlers, especially those who resided in the southern English colonies, learned the original recipes and processes for corn dishes from the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek, and soon they devised recipes for using cornmeal in breads similar to those made of grains available in Europe. Cornbread has been called a "cornerstone" of Southern United States cuisine.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup self-rising cornmeal
¹/₃ cup self-rising flour
¹/₃ cup mayonnaise
¹/₂ cup milk
1 whole egg

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 450° and add cooking oil to coat bottom of a 7-in cast iron skillet. Place skillet inside oven.

Mix corn meal, flour, egg, and mayonnaise, and then pour in milk until desired consistency (runny but not too soupy). Remove hot skillet from oven and pour in mix. Bake until top starts to brown, about 15 minutes.

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