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Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8
That information about cooking cornbread on a hoe is fascinating--I had never heard about it before. I hope that the workers out in the field washed the hoe up at least a little bit before the cooking began. It would be clean (bacteria free) dirt by the time that they got through, but the grit would be extremely hard on the teeth (some ancient people and more recent, but technologically-backward, people often had bad, worn-down teeth from eating foods made from wheat and corn because of the stone tools/implements that were used for grinding those grains). But, then, where would they have gotten the water (not even considering clean water) to wash it at all, not even thinking about it being washed like it needed to be washed? Being Merciful, I won't go any further with that line of thought. ha.
Johnnycakes sounds a little bit more familiar, but still not very. I'm racking my brain trying to remember if my (Knoxville-area) grandmother ever cooked cornbread that way, and I'm just not remembering that she did. Seems like she always used a skillet, which my Mom, following her example, almost always used, too. Mom is almost 80 years old, but she still has a sharp mind, so I'm going to talk to her and she what she remembers.
The areas of my sojourning in the deep South in which I remember seeing flat, pancake-like cornbread the most (it was almost, if not completely, ubiquitous in these places, in fact) were northeast Mississippi and east central Alabama. If you ordered "cornbread" in a restaurant there, you were going to get pancake-style. Right after I moved to the first one of those two places, and I saw pieces of pancake-style cornbread for the first time or two, I thought that they were pancakes--I had never, or extremely rarely at least, seen cornbread like that!
A quick, tangential thing about cornbread in a restaurant. The tendency to go pancake-style in them probably had a lot to do with practicality, too. The skillet-cooked cornbread, with its pie-like pieces and often crumbly sides, did not lend itself well to being served aesthetically. Thoughts?
A good (I didn't say "great." ha.) compromise in the skillet vs griddle style situation is one that I see some around here where I live now (north central Florida). It is sheet-cake/brownie-style, where the cornbread mix is poured into a rectangular cake pan, cooked, and then sliced into square-ish pieces before serving.
Common around here, too, is preparing cornbread muffin-style. Maybe it's common, too, in central Tennessee, because the central/north-central-Tennessee-based (Lebanon, Tennessee) chain Cracker Barrel serves it muffin style. However, south of there about 60-70 was a well-known restaurant which served it skillet-style.
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Well, washing would be good, I agree. But, no bacteria would survive the fire (which is another reason you don't have to worry about cleaning cast iron all that much, although I do prefer clean for mine) and some cultures eat clay or dirt for essential nutrients not otherwise present in their diets. But, yes, my grandmother used a skillet. The name and original recipes date to slave times and plantations (much like matzoh dates back a bit ... and probably wasn't made of wheat, at the time, since wheat was a scarcer grain than barley, which was more commonly used for bread in that region at the time). I have my grandmother's skillets - all are smooth and work so much better than what you can get today, as places like Lodge don't both to do the grinding smooth steps these days, knowing that most people don't know they should and won't use the skillets in many cases. I use mine, but those smooth ones work better for many recipes.
Northern recipes for both will use sugar, of course, while some also add white flour. Both would have been too expensive for daily (or any use) for farm based workers and many farm owners of the south, as well as blue collar city dwellers, back before continued industrialization made both very cheap commodities. Corn, of course, was close to free, since it was grown practically everywhere and by everyone.
If you've never had a Full House, ask your grandmother about them. A traditional Knoxville dish (and apparently unique to here), which most likely came to the region at the end of the rescue of Texas.
I've had cornbread served traditionally (baked in skillet), as cornpone (smaller, sticks of cornbread, using special pan and also baked in the oven), and as johnny cakes. The latter are better for places that are making large quantities, as you can use a flat grill top or a few skillets on stove, rather than having to cook longer in the oven (the thicker the cornbread, the longer it takes). You make the batter and scoop out to cook as needed, so everyone gets a nice hot cake. For cooking at home, though, making it all at once is definitely preferable for the cook. You can control crumbling, to some extent, by the use of eggs, type of milk and fineness of the cornmeal. And you don't have to use cast iron - I know people that use glass casserole dishes for their cornbread (and one local restaurant does the square pan style, but they use a sweet, northern recipe; they do gluten free once a week, so no wheat, but it is just so sweet - even the jalepeno & cheese version they do).
Muffins are a pretty decent compromise between making them ahead and not having to cut and serve. I believe the CB recipe uses wheat, though.