oldcoot
Senior Cook
O.K., so I don't have a llife. 
Well, actually, my lifelong interest has been primarily chemistry (even 'tho I found it boring as hell on a day to day basis, so switched to ME,), so I am prone to fiddling around with stuff.
All the recent talk about cornbread piqued my interest in it. It occurred to me that the pioneer cooks probably did not have white flour or baking powder out in the sticks. So what might they have used?
If they had a cornfield, they'd surely have had chickens. (And vice-versa?) Probably no sugar - but ample honey from wild hives. And a cow for milk and butter.
So I made a batch of cornbread using only cornmeal, egg, honey, butter, salt, and milk. I beat the egg white to soft peak and folded it in for leavening. I coounted on the yolk to hold everything together. Here's the result
A tad grainy (not enough milk to soften the meal), but otherwise pretty darned good. Not as light and fluffy as "modern" recipes, but b\very palatable.
Well, actually, my lifelong interest has been primarily chemistry (even 'tho I found it boring as hell on a day to day basis, so switched to ME,), so I am prone to fiddling around with stuff.
All the recent talk about cornbread piqued my interest in it. It occurred to me that the pioneer cooks probably did not have white flour or baking powder out in the sticks. So what might they have used?
If they had a cornfield, they'd surely have had chickens. (And vice-versa?) Probably no sugar - but ample honey from wild hives. And a cow for milk and butter.
So I made a batch of cornbread using only cornmeal, egg, honey, butter, salt, and milk. I beat the egg white to soft peak and folded it in for leavening. I coounted on the yolk to hold everything together. Here's the result
A tad grainy (not enough milk to soften the meal), but otherwise pretty darned good. Not as light and fluffy as "modern" recipes, but b\very palatable.
