Corn Cakes

A two-ingredient batter, essentially, and it behaves nothing like a wheat pancake. The absence of flour is the whole character of the thing: these are thin, lacy, crisp-edged cakes that will tear if you rush them.

• The measurementsA pint is 2 cups: about 2 cups (roughly 9 oz) cornmeal to 2 cups buttermilk. Equal volumes of meal and milk give a thick, spoonable batter rather than a freely pouring one; cornmeal drinks liquid as it sits, so expect to thin it with a splash more milk after five minutes.
• Sour milk means acidThe soda has nothing to react with unless the milk is genuinely acidic. Cultured buttermilk from a carton works. Fresh milk soured on the counter is not the same product as 19th-century clabbered raw milk and should not be substituted.
• CornmealUse plain stone-ground yellow or white meal, medium grind, not self-rising cornmeal (which already contains leavening and salt) and not degerminated fine meal, which turns pasty. Masa harina is a different product entirely and will not work here.
• The saltA full teaspoon of salt for 2 cups of meal reads high by modern habit but is correct for an unsweetened cornmeal cake eaten with butter and syrup or alongside meat. Scale back to ¾ teaspoon if that is your preference.
• Egg or starchThe egg is a binder, not a leavener. The tablespoon of flour or cornstarch offered as a substitute does the same job less well; with neither, the cakes will fall apart on the turn.
• Griddle heatMedium; the book gives no temperature, so judge by the pan. Grease it lightly even on a nonstick surface — cornmeal has no gluten to hold the cake together, so it needs to set firmly before it moves. Wait until the top is dull and the edges look dry, then turn once.
• YieldAbout a dozen 4-inch cakes, serving three or four. They are best straight off the griddle; cooled, they go leathery.