Recipe: Grandma's Cornbread

Grandma's Cornbread

Circa 1950's

           Today I am bringing you a recipe that is very near and dear to our hearts and has been passed down on my husband’s side of the family for generations. I always look forward to the fall and winter months and it is without a doubt my favorite time of the year. When the temperatures start dropping and the nights grow longer I turn to my favorite comfort foods for dinner. I am a very lucky girl and was blessed to not only marry a wonderful man, but one that loves to cook! He makes a killer pot roast, delicious stew, amazing chili and the dish that goes with them all…cornbread. It seems like we are making a batch every week when the temperatures start dropping. With Thanksgiving approaching I thought that there wouldn’t be a better time than to share this wonderful recipe!  It is delicious on its own and makes an amazing stuffing for Thanksgiving…at least in our family stuffing has always included good ole’ Texas cornbread.

          This recipe was passed down from Chris’s mom from his wonderful grandmother.  She grew up in Depression-era Oklahoma and it was always on the table at family gatherings.  Chris borrowed his recipe from his Grandma’s, although he does admit that the honey and sugar were later additions because “Grandma would never have made ‘sweet’ cornbread.”  I must confess that I love the sweet additions! Please enjoy this wonderful family heirloom recipe with you own loved ones this Thanksgiving!


Chris's grandmother is located on the 1st row 3rd from right with the doll

     Here is a little food for thought on this traditional southern dish to share with your friends and family this holiday season. Corn was in America long before Columbus sailed the ocean blue and was a staple for many Native Americans. When new settlers arrived in America they had to “make do” with food sources that were available to them and corn happened to be one of the most prominent. While European settlers had traditionally used finely ground wheat for their breads, anything “fine” was in short supply. Therefore they turned to corn or as it was sometimes known, maize.  John F Mariani wrote “Native Americans roasted their corn and ground it into meal to make cakes, bread, and porridges…The new cereal was precious and helped early settlers to survive those first harsh years…Before long uniquely American dishes were being developed,” It would later go on to be called cornbread and become everyday fare. However, many colonists were not thrilled with the wheat substitute, and viewed any form of bread made with corn instead of wheat a sad paste of despair.

          When settlers arrived in Texas in the early 1800’s (including Grandma’s great-great grandparents) corn was one of the first crops they planted and used it to feed their families and their animals. Over the years it has gone by many names including corn pone, johhny cakes, hoe cakes, and spoon bread. Today is no longer considered a sad day when you have fresh and warm cornbread with your meal! Please enjoy!  

Recipes: Fried Okra

Fried Okra

Circa: 1870's

             

            Today I am bringing you a dish that is near and dear to my heart: my grandma’s pan-fried okra! I have loved this dish since I was a little girl and it is always my first request when I get to go home to visit my family in Paris. It’s a unique recipe in the sense that there isn’t necessarily a recipe. It’s a pinch of this, dash of that, and handfuls of a great southern staple:  cornmeal!

This year Chris planted a wonderful garden in our backyard and we have been enjoying fresh tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers, and this weekend, we harvested our first batch of okra.  We also had a wonderful “staycation” and spent the weekend in downtown Houston, Texas, including a visit to the OKRA Charity Bar for delicious cocktails and fried okra!  Of course, we could only be inspired to combine the two with our Sunday night dinner! I called my grandma to get her infamous recipe, pulled out the skillet, and went to work.  Even though our’s was delicious, it will never be as good as my grandma’s.  But I think that’s how it is supposed to be! So please enjoy our take on classic pan fried okra and our serving of a little history on this classic southern dish!

                    Like so many Southern staples, the origins of fried okra aren’t exactly clear beyond simply pan frying the fresh meat and vegetables growing right outside the door.  What is clear, however, is that okra itself is actually native to Africa and came to America early in the 1700s.  It is actually a member of the Mallow family and related to cotton, hibiscus and hollyhock.  While it was originally used to thicken soups and stews, people quickly caught on to its many delicious uses!  Even Thomas Jefferson, a master gardener himself, valued okra as one of Virginia’s best garden plants.

                     With regard to the southern tradition of frying okra, the earliest recipe I could find was from 1870, and simply says “cut them in thin cross slices, sprinkle meal over them, and fry crisp.”  Apparently, not much has changed! For our recipe, we prefer to fry our okra in a cast iron skillet for extra flavor and easy clean-up, but almost any sturdy frying pan will do. You may notice that I didn't include any measurements and to be honest that's because there really aren't any. It all depends on how many people are coming over for dinner; as long as you have enough cornmeal to coat the okra you are good to go!  Finally, everyone has their own preference, but if it’s not extra crispy and slightly burnt then it’s not real fried okra in our house!

  

Recipe: Fried Green Tomatoes

Fried Green Tomatoes

Circa: 1900's

 

                I couldn’t imagine starting my weekly recipe series with anything other than Fried Green Tomatoes! I love the delicious combination of the slightly tart warm tomatoes with a crunchy cornmeal coating.  If you are like me you were probably first introduced to fried green tomatoes by the 1992 film based on Fannie Flagg’s novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café. Is there anything more classic and southern than this dish?  Well the truth might surprise you.

 

                As a history lover I was interested in the origins of the dish and set out to do a little research of my own.  I began with Miss Flagg herself and the cookbook The Original Whistlestop Café Cookbook in which she reveals that:

 

                “The Irondale Café was started by my great aunt Bess in the thirties… just outside my hometown of Birmingham. Virginia Johnson, that fabulous cook who first went to work for my aunt when she was eleven can still be found in the kitchen happily frying up a fresh batch of fried green tomatoes every day, the same kind that I, along with generations of others have enjoyed since we were children.”

 

                While Fannie Flagg reminisces about enjoying fried tomatoes as a child, it was hard to find further evidence that this was a traditional southern dish. Actually, most of the sources that I found attributes the dishes’ origins to Jewish Immigrants in the Northeast and Midwest at the turn of the century. Robert F. Moss, a food historian and writer found recipes for the Fried Green Tomatoes in the 1919 International Jewish Cookbook as well as newspapers and magazines by the early part of the 20^th century. He found nothing in southern cookbooks and very little in the newspapers.

 

                While the origins of Fried Green Tomatoes in the south is unclear,  in recent years I think that it is safe to say it is a southern staple! I hope you enjoy!!

 

 

Recipe:  Diana Swenson-Siegel www.allrecipes.com