MAKIN’S FROM CORN AND CORNMEAL—THE SOUL OF APPALACHIAN COOKING
If bread lies at the heart of Appalachian culinary ways, baked goods using cornmeal can sort of be reckoned the mother church of the bread family. Corn as a crop has always been ideally suited to the region’s geography. A patch can be grown almost anywhere there is a piece of cleared ground, from steep hillsides to fertile river bottomland and all types of topography in between. Moreover, corn is a crop featuring exceptional versatility. Freshly picked corn in the form of roasting ears is a summertime dietary treat that can, with successive plantings, be enjoyed over a time span of as much as three months.
The primary usage of corn, however, has always come in its fully matured, dried form. Ideally suited for human consumption thanks not only to its taste but because the grain stores well (corn with the shucks left intact will, if protected from moisture and pests such as rats and weevils, keep almost indefinitely). Historically, it could be ground in small quantities in simple tub mills as well as larger, more complex overshot water wheel operations. This translated to ready production of meal in a process that was appreciably less complex than the milling of other grains such as wheat, rye, or buckwheat. With corn, there was minimal waste. Leavings from poorly formed or inferior ears sometimes called nubbins served admirably as scratch feed for chickens or as supplemental food for hogs in the fattening up times of autumn.
Corn fodder fed livestock and, when stacked in shocks, provided makeshift yet eminently practical means of food storage to protect long-keeping vegetables such as pumpkins, potatoes, and cabbage from freezing during the depths of winter’s cold. Cobs from shelled corn could be fashioned into jug stoppers, carved to make pipes, or soaked in kerosene to provide a dandy fire starter. Corn was, in short, an ideal crop, and that holds true even without venturing into the fabled traditions associated with the grain in its liquid form. The recipes that follow are but a slender sampling of the ways in which it can be prepared, and all these focus on its use in the making of bread. Other usages for corn as a fresh vegetable occur later in the book.
Of the myriad methods for using corn, baking it in what was normally called pone was the most common. Yet the word cornbread embraced an array of preparations, with ingredients varying quite remarkably. An example of that consideration is provided by the methods our families have used, and our respective recipes for it provide two illustrations of how to prepare this most traditional of Appalachian foodstuffs.
Of course cornbread merely forms a starting point for the many baked variations—fritters, hushpuppies, dodgers, corn cakes (cooked on a griddle just like pancakes), etc.—which can be made from cornmeal. Then there are so many things you can add to the batter—cracklings, jalapenos or other “hot” stuff for Mexican cornbread, corn kernels, and the like. What is offered here is nothing more than a small sampling of the unending delights afforded by cornmeal.
—Celebrating Southern Appalachian Food written by Jim Casada and Tipper Pressley
Today’s Thankful November giveaway is a copy of Celebrating Southern Appalachian Food written by Jim Casada and Tipper Pressley. To be entered in the giveaway leave a comment on this post. Giveaway ends November 6, 2026.
Last night’s video: A Big Push Toward Our Winter Food || White Sweet Potatoes & Deer Meat.
Tipper
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