All about Corn...bread!

Corn bread is the South's distinctive quick bread.
Early Kentuckians used soured milk and small quantities of lye water (the colonial counterpart of modern baking sodas and powders) to leaven ground corn meal, which they turned into hoe cakes, spoon bread, cracklin' corn bread, griddle cakes, hush puppies, and corn fritters.

The notable difference between Southern corn bread and whatís known as "Yankee corn bread" is the addition of sugar. No self-respectin' Southerner would mix sugar and cornmeal, unless they call it dessert.

Soft 'n sweet corn bread is not Southern.

To make a pan of real corn bread, you have to have a good cast-iron skillet, said Ronni Lundy, author of Shuck Beans, Stack Cakes and Honest Fried Chicken, and Butter Beans to Blackberries.
An old, well-seasoned and well-used one is best. It may look greasy and caked-up on the outside, but that just means youíll get a better crust. Into the pan goes a big spoonful of drippings, she said. Bacon grease is best.

Put the skillet in an oven where the fire is already white-hot and scorching, about 450 degrees.

Dump some cornmeal, about two cups' worth, in a big bowl. Mountain people prefer white cornmeal because itís got a sharper taste and tenderer texture. Put in some salt for savor, and a little baking soda and baking powder for just a little rise, but not too much. Remember, real corn bread is never puffed-up or self-important.

Crack a big egg in the middle and break it with your wooden spoon. Add milk, about a cup-and-a-half worth. Sweet milk is just fine, but if you've got buttermilk, youíve got good eating.

Stir it up and about then your drippings should be good and hot. Take your skillet out of the oven and swirl it to coat it. It should crackle and pop.

Lundy says to pour the grease into the batter, mix it in quick, pour the batter back into the skillet, and pop it into the oven.

Now here's the hard part. Youíre going to have to wait for 20 to 25 minutes. And while youíre waiting youíre going to start to smell that sweet, buttery scent of the corn, the seductive saltiness of the bacon grease. And when you pull that skillet out of the oven, the corn bread will have a golden-brown glistening crust that will crack crisply as you make that first slice. And when you pull that first wedge up out of the pan, a little cloud of corn-sweet steam will rise up in your face.

That's how you make Southern corn bread.