NEW WAYS WITH
CORNBREAD
BY GEORGIA CLARKE
RECIPE DEVELOPMENT BY ASHLEY JONES
FOOD STYLING BY KATHLEEN KANENWe revamped the South’s best-known
bread with recipes for every time of day
While crispy-bottomed cornbread is a quintessential side to any
Southern meal, this buttery bread got its start with the Native
Americans. Cheap and plentiful, maize was a central part of
their daily diets, so it was important for them to fi nd a variety
of ways to use the adaptable crop. In early days, cornbread
was a simple mixture of cornmeal, water, and salt fried into
cakes over a fi re. European settlers arriving in the New World
took this Native American recipe and added game-changing
ingredients like buttermilk, eggs, and leaveners, as well as
new cooking techniques. Hoecakes (small pancake-like
cornbread cakes cooked on old-school griddles,
colloquially called hoes ) became a staple for
early Southerners; and while hoecakes are
still made today, most of us turn to our
trusty cast-iron skillet to create those
craveable disks practically begging
for a pat of butter. With these recipes,
we’ve given classic cornbread new life.