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Steamed Corn Bread
Mrs. Jane Conger.
Take three cups of meal, and one of flour, scald two cups of the meal with boiling water, add the other cup of meal and flour, two cups of sour milk, one cup molasses, one teaspoon of soda, a little salt. Steam three hours.
A plain steamed cornbread of the Boston brown bread family, leavened only by soda meeting sour milk and molasses. The whole thing hinges on the scald, so start there.
- Scald the meal firstPouring boiling water over two cups of the cornmeal gelatinizes the starch, which is what helps keep a three-hour steamed loaf moist rather than gritty. The recipe gives no quantity; add boiling water gradually — around a cup and a half — to make a stiff paste, and let it cool before the soda goes in, so the leavening is not spent before the loaf is in the steam.
- Meal means cornmeal"Meal" unqualified in a book of this period is Indian meal, that is, yellow or white cornmeal, medium grind. Stone-ground is closer to what Mrs. Conger had; modern degerminated supermarket meal will also work.
- Sour milkNineteenth-century sour milk was raw milk left to clabber, and its acid is what activates the teaspoon of soda. Cultured buttermilk is the direct substitute; failing that, add two tablespoons of vinegar or lemon juice to two cups of whole milk and let it stand ten minutes.
- MolassesUse unsulphured baking molasses, not blackstrap, which is harsh and bitter in this quantity. A full cup makes the loaf dark, sweet and distinctly wet-crumbed, which is correct for the style.
- The vesselSteamed breads want a tall covered mold filled about two-thirds full. This is a large batter — something over two quarts once mixed — so use a 3-quart basin or divide it between several cans. Butter well and cover with foil or a lid tied on, so condensation does not run into the batter.
- Setting up the steamStand the mold on a rack in a deep pot, add boiling water halfway up its side, cover, and keep it at a bare simmer. Check the water level every hour and top up with boiling water; a pot that steams dry will scorch the bottom of the loaf.
- Three hours is not paddingThe long steam is what cooks a dense, molasses-heavy batter through without a crust forming. Test with a skewer at two and a half hours if you used two small cans rather than one large mold.
- Salt and yield"A little salt" means about a teaspoon. The batter makes a large loaf, or two smaller ones if divided; serve warm in thick rounds with butter, or with baked beans, as steamed breads of this family commonly were.
Steamed breads belong to a New England tradition older than reliable home ovens: a covered mold set over simmering water gave dependable results on a stovetop or hearth when oven heat was uneven and expensive to maintain. Cornmeal, rye and molasses were the cheap staples of that region, and molasses arrived in quantity through the New England sugar and rum trade, which is why it shows up as the sweetener in so many nineteenth-century American breads and puddings rather than sugar. The pairing of soda with sour milk marks the recipe as belonging to the era, generally placed somewhere from the 1830s onward, after chemical leavening reached ordinary kitchens and displaced the older reliance on yeast or long-beaten eggs. Recipes credited to a named contributor, as this one is to Mrs. Jane Conger, are the signature of the community cookbook: such collections were assembled from household contributions, and each name attached is a small claim of authorship over a version everyone already knew.