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Buttermilk Cornmeal Mush
White cornmeal cooked in buttermilk makes a dish which resembles cottage cheese in flavor. It should be served very cold with cream. In making it, allow one part of cornmeal to six parts of buttermilk, and one teaspoon of salt to each cup of meal.
This is a proportion rather than a procedure, which was normal for cereal entries in books of this period — the author assumed the reader already knew how to cook mush. The two things worth knowing are that the buttermilk will separate as it heats and that the mush is meant to be eaten cold.
- The proportionsOne part meal to six parts buttermilk, by volume, with 1 teaspoon salt per cup of meal. That is thinner than most water mush, which typically runs nearer one part meal to four or five of liquid, so expect a soft set rather than a firm sliceable one.
- Curdling is expectedButtermilk breaks as soon as it gets hot, so the pan will look grainy and separated. The recipe compares the result to cottage cheese in flavor, and the acid tang is where that comparison comes from; do not try to smooth it out or substitute sweet milk.
- Cook it gentlyDirect high heat scorches a buttermilk mush quickly. Whisk the meal into cold buttermilk, bring it up slowly with constant stirring, then hold it at a bare simmer 25 to 30 minutes, or set it over a double boiler for 45 minutes and stir occasionally.
- White cornmealSpecified in the recipe; white meal is the milder of the two and keeps the dish pale. Yellow meal will work, though it gives a stronger corn flavor and a yellow color.
- Buttermilk has changedThe book means the thin, sour liquid left from churning butter, which was low in fat and could be quite sour depending on how far the cream had ripened. Modern cultured buttermilk is thicker and more uniform; any of it will work, and the difference is mainly one of consistency.
- ChillingPour into a bowl or loaf pan, cover the surface to stop a skin forming, and refrigerate at least four hours or overnight. "Very cold" is part of the recipe, not a suggestion — warm, it tastes flat and sour.
- YieldOne cup of meal with six cups of buttermilk makes roughly six servings. Serve with cream, and a little sugar or maple syrup if the sourness needs balancing.
Cornmeal mush was the plainest of American breakfast cereals, cooked in water or milk and eaten hot with cream, or chilled, sliced and fried the next day. Cooking it in buttermilk is a thrift measure of the churning household: buttermilk was the leftover from butter-making, cheap or free, mildly acidic and usable in griddle cakes, breads and porridges. The cottage-cheese resemblance is real chemistry rather than fancy — heat and acid coagulate the milk proteins into fine curds suspended through the starch.