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Indian Griddle Cakes
1 quart of sour milk. 1 large tablespoonful of butter, melted after measuring. 2 eggs. 1 teaspoonful of soda. Half a teaspoonful of salt. Make a thin batter, with two-thirds Indian meal, and one-third flour. A small bag made of coarse but thin linen or cotton, and filled with common salt, is much better to rub over the griddle than lard, when cakes are to be fried or baked.
A cornmeal-heavy griddle cake leavened by the reaction between soda and soured milk. The proportions of meal and flour are given as a ratio rather than a weight, so the batter is judged by eye.
- Indian mealIndian meal is cornmeal, in Virginia usually white and fairly fine. A coarse stone-ground meal will give a grittier cake.
- Sour milkSour milk here is naturally clabbered raw milk, mildly acidic. Cultured buttermilk is the correct substitute; pasteurised milk left out simply spoils and should not be used.
- The soda is the leaveningOne teaspoon of soda to a quart of soured milk is on the modest side, and the reaction begins the moment the two meet. Mix the batter last and cook it promptly, or the cakes will be flat.
- Quantities of meal and flourThe recipe gives only the two-thirds/one-third ratio, not the total. For a quart of milk expect somewhere near 3 to 4 cups of dry mixture; add it gradually until the batter pours in a ribbon and spreads on its own.
- The salt bagThe bag of salt rubbed over a hot griddle scours it and keeps the cakes from sticking without smoking or leaving burnt fat. It is not needed on a modern nonstick surface.
- Griddle heatCornmeal batters can brown quickly. Hold the griddle around 350-375F, hot enough that a drop of water dances but does not vanish instantly, and turn once when the bubbles at the edge set.
- YieldA quart of milk makes a great deal of batter, on the order of two dozen four-inch cakes. Halve everything, using one egg, for a household of two or three.
"Indian meal" is the older English name for maize meal, generally said to have arisen to distinguish American corn from the wheat, rye and oats that the word corn already covered in Britain, and it survived in American cookbooks well into the twentieth century. Cakes of this kind sit at the heart of Virginia breakfast cookery, where cornmeal batters appeared daily in one form or another: batter bread, hoecakes, muffins, griddle cakes. The recipe assumes a dairy that produced more milk than could be drunk sweet, so soured milk was a routine ingredient rather than a substitute, and soda was there to neutralise it. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (first issued in 1878, with later printings dated 1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by Virginia housewives, is full of such small economies, including the salt bag for greasing the griddle, which is a hint as much as it is part of the recipe.