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Twenty Ways of Cooking Corn Meal

"Corn is the most widely cultivated grain in the world, with the exception of rice." "As to nutritive matter, corn is only exceeded by wheat, and followed by rice among the leading articles of food. Calculated according to the physilogical wants of the system, a week's diet for an adult would only cost about twenty cents, and, excepting split peas, there is nothing approaching corn for economy." "Even in the United States, where thirty-seven million acres are devoted to the culture of Indian corn, yielding a total product of thirteen hundred million bushels, while the wheat crop of the world is only seven hundred and sixty million bushels, we only understand the economic value of corn as cattle food." "In buying wheat flour, the same outlay wound purchase double the amount of nutriment in Indian meal. The prejudice against the use of corn as an article of human food is based on ignorance in many cases, and on false pride in others. Wheat is most agreeable to the taste, and is preferred by a greater portion of the human family, or, at least, by those who are able to purchase it. While all the world is familiar with wheat as an article of food, not one-tenth of its population ever heard of Indian corn except as cattle food. It is quite remarkable that notwithstanding its acknowledged good qualities and its economy, yet it is but little known to the people or those portions of Europe to whom cheap food is an absolute necessity; and even in times of famine it has required judicious and persistent governmental efforts to induce famishing communities to use it."

The preceding statements, taken here and there from an able statistical article in the Boston Cultivator, suggest the conclusion that it would be a good thing in a general way, if all people could be led to like corn better than wheat. It is our business to believe that such a consummation can be reached solely through the instrumentality of the cooks; by the more general diffusion of knowledge of the best ways of using corn meal, and encouragement to put in those extra careful touches which are needed to make even the best receipts thoroughly successful. My own experience as a cook warrants the assertion that corn bread properly made and carefully baked, can be made popular almost anywhere. The small loaf that at first finds no takers is presently in demand, and then gives place to one of twice or thrice the size, a proportionate amount of wheat bread being thereby displaced. That an entire community, state or nation may have a real preference for corn over wheat bread, is shown by the fact of the matter in the Southern States, where corn bread is never out of place, even at the best furnished tables. The rich breads and puddings with which we shall first lead corn meal into general favor, are not commended on the score of cheapness, except in country places where eggs and butter have but little market value; but that it is a real liking for corn meal, pure and simple, and not for the condiments, which obtains among so large a proportion of the Southerners, is seen from the fact that the prevailing dinner bread at the most expensively provided steamboat and hotel tables was formerly, and probably is yet, the corn cake made of nothing whatever but meal and water.

Why one section should prefer a corn diet more than another when there is no consideration of economy involved at all, I have never seen fully accounted for, and will venture the supposition that it shows the result of tastes trained in early life by a race of domestic cooks who knew how to make corn bread good. What has been done can be done again.

It will not be expected that we professed cooks shall dabble either in political economy or social science, but I, for one, cannot help thinking that a better knowledge of the ways to make corn meal a palatable diet, diffused throughout the land, would result in bringing the fifteen-cents-per-bushel corn of Kansas and Nebraska into its proper use-of furnishing cheap and wholesome food and luxuries for the million.

In the culinary departments of the best American hotels, it is but reasonable to expect that the greatest perfection in compounding American specialties will have been attained. However there is only one notable instance of a large hotel becoming celebrated for its corn bread, even that is nearly forgotten, now that there is no more call for special commissions to go and teach the art to Europe.

I have seen "going the rounds," what purported to be a receipt for St. Charles corn bread, which mentioned sugar as one of the ingredients, but can-not consider it genuine. Different cooks may have had different ways, but the following was the formula in use on the floating palaces of the same day, such steamboats as the Southern Belle and the Magnolia, of the "coast" trade, and the long-trip boats which made the excellence of this bread known on the upper rivers. We used to bake it in cake moulds, and sometimes serve it with sauce as corn pound pudding; more in fun than from any necessities of the case. It can be sliced thin like cake, and used in many ways: St. Charles Corn Bread. 1 pound of white corn meal (not quite a quart). 4 ounces of fresh butter, melted (size of two eggs). 1 pint of boiling water. 1 pint of cold milk. 4 eggs. 1 level teaspoonful salt. 1 teaspoonful of wholesome, home-made baking powder.

Pour the boiling water into the meal, wetting and scalding it all. Then add the melted butter, salt and milk, and then the eggs. Put the baking pan in the oven to get hot, without greasing it. Add the powder to the batter; beat up with the large wire egg-whisk, then pour it into the pan. The batter is as thin as for batter cakes. If the pan is hissing hot it never sticks, and there is no discoloration of burnt grease. This bread should be about an inch and a half deep in the pan, and bake half an hour or more. The sooner the top crust is formed the better, after that it needs to bake slowly. This, when done, is, of course, only corn bread, but it has the peculiar characteristic, that everybody likes it. But pastry cooks, generally, "hate to make it." It is a little hard to bake just right. For another sort, not too rich nor good for human nature's daily food, we have the regular stand-by-the common hotel corn bread, which may be good or otherwise, according to the skill of the maker.