Home › Village Receipts › Corn Bread (One cup of Indian meal one cup)
Corn Bread (One cup of Indian meal one cup)
One cup of Indian meal, one cup of flour, one-half teaspoon of soda, one-half teaspoon of salt, one heaping teaspoon of butter, onehall cup of sugar, one cup of sour milk or buttermilk, one egg; sift meal, flour, soda and salt together; beat yolk of egg and sugar together, add milk, then stir in meal and melted butter, and beat hard; beat white of egg and add last. Bake in a shallow tin twenty minutes.
— Mrs. Henry M. Miner
A straightforward sour-milk cornbread that needs only a few translations to work in a modern kitchen.
- Indian mealThis is plain cornmeal, white or yellow depending on the region and mill, and generally stone-ground in this period. A medium grind gives the closest texture; fine degerminated supermarket meal will make a softer, cakier bread.
- Sour milkNot spoiled milk but naturally soured raw milk, acidic enough to react with the soda. Cultured buttermilk is the direct substitute; failing that, a cup of milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar stirred in and left ten minutes.
- The soda is the whole leaveningThe soda is the chief leavening -- There is no baking powder here, so the acid in the buttermilk and the half teaspoon of soda do most of the lifting, helped by the beaten egg white. Mix and get it into the oven promptly, before the gas escapes.
- "One heaping teaspoon of butter"An odd small amount by modern standards; melted, perhaps a teaspoon and a half to two teaspoons. More butter will give a richer crumb if you want it.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives none. Twenty minutes in a shallow tin suggests a fairly hot oven; somewhere around 400-425F is a reasonable modern guess. Test with a skewer at eighteen minutes.
- The panA shallow tin means a thin layer that bakes fast, roughly an 8-inch square or a 9-inch round. A preheated cast-iron skillet, greased and hot, will give a crisper bottom crust if you prefer one.
- Beaten egg whiteFolding the whipped white in last lightens the crumb, so fold rather than beat it in or the effort is wasted.
- YieldOne shallow pan, eight to nine squares. Best within an hour of baking; it stales quickly, as cornbread does.
"Indian meal" was the standing American name for cornmeal well into the nineteenth century and beyond, distinguishing maize from the wheat, rye and oats that English cooks called corn. This version, with a full cup of wheat flour, half a cup of sugar and an egg, is the sweeter, flour-heavy style of cornbread rather than the plain, unsweetened, mostly-meal breads associated with the South. Compiled community books commonly listed receipts under the contributor's married name, which is why so many of these pages read as a roll call of village households. The reliance on sour milk and soda rather than baking powder is a long-standing habit in households that had milk turning and did not want to waste it.