Spoon Bread Recipe Southern Appalachian Style

It's been another rough week illness wise. Don't know what I do to make this illness jump on me and beat me up with both feet. It happens and I survive the episodes, just it plays havoc with the things I want to do. I have several posts I am working on and I promise to get more up this week. But in the meantime, recipes are easy.

I made Spoon Bread today. It went very well with our Sunday supper of ham, sweet potatoes, green beans and corn. No extra energy is needed since I try to cook something for Sunday supper every week anyway and all I had to do is take a picture of it to share it on the blog.

I cook very little during the week but we still keep our family Appalachian tradition of Sunday Supper. Kith and kin know at my house you can join us for a good old fashioned meal on Sunday. Many bring dishes to contribute especially when I'm having episodes. It's our time to get together every week with family and friends. I rest up for it every week and feel really blessed to have my family.

For those of you that don't know the difference between dinner and supper, in my family....dinner is lunchtime, supper is late in the evening. Many like the noon time dinner after church. I kept finding if I made dinner, folks still just didn't show up until late afternoon on Sunday. In the modern world supper works better for us.

Spoon Bread is a type of cornbread. The taste in it's original recipe, reminds me sort of tamale coverings but better. You just have to make it and try it because I can't describe what Spoon Bread tastes like.  You can cool it completely and it will slice or you can spoon it out hot or warm.  Some folks like it sweet and you can add sugar to the recipe. Some season it with cinnamon. Some like to add pepper before cooking it. I use the original recipe and let folks season it themselves. I just like to add butter to it on my plate.

This recipe came from my friend Geraldine over 30+ years ago. It was her grandmother's recipe. My grandmother made it too but I never had her recipe.

Spoon Bread Recipe Southern Appalachian Style
1 cup corn meal
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon butter (can use lard or bacon grease)
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 1/2 cups boiling water
Pour corn meal, salt and butter (or lard) into bowl. Add boiling water and beat until smooth. Break egg into mixture. Add milk into which baking powder has been dissolved. Mix well. Pour into buttered 1 quart baking dish. Cook 400 degrees for 30 minutes. You can check by inserting a toothpick into the center and if comes out clean it is done.

Mama's Appalachian Corn Bread Recipe

I'm not exactly sure why but women in Appalachia are expected to cook. I don't know if it's DNA or cultural expectations, not sure...it's just something we all in this family were expected to know how to do.

Though women's roles have changed along with the rest of the country, knowing how to cook these old recipes still survives. But I have a girlfriend, raised right here, who has never learn to really cook. Her husband said he knew she was no cook when they were dating because anytime he questioned her, "What about some dinner?" She grabbed her purse every time.

But most girls were trained at their mother's and grandmother's feet. Somehow knowing some of these recipes, cooking them for dinner in the modern world, is just something we do. Today we cooked the staple Brown Beans, Corn Bread, with diced onions, slice tomato, cucumbers and home made macaroni and cheese.

While making the corn bread I realized most of the women in our family, especially my mother, did not measure ingredients and they learned from their mother's and grandmothers the recipes by memory. But I could not ever remember how to make corn bread by memory. When I tried to find one like it online, in cookbooks, etc. I could not find one quite like our family recipe.

Couple of years ago, after my mother died, my brother gave me something worth more than gold. He was at Mom's house before she passed away, and made her measure out the ingredients for the family cornbread recipe. He let me make a copy of her notes. 

Now many would wonder why I would even think about sharing such a prize recipe with the world. I never understood the hoarding of recipes mindset.  We have family members that share recipes, but they will leave out an ingredient or two, so that if you try to duplicate their recipe...it never tastes like theirs.  There is always a karmic aspect to this practice. I've seen over and over again family wanting to credit the right person for a recipe, it's usually the "bad" recipe that survives and then they are not thought of nor remembered as such a great cook.

Sharing this recipe means that it will survive.  May even be made better.

Lena's Corn Bread Recipe
Ingredients:

3 cups Buttermilk
1 egg
1 tablespoon sugar
3 1/3 cups self-rising corn meal
pinch of baking soda
4 tablespoons bacon grease or vegetable oil

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Put the 4 tablespoons oil in iron skillet. Heat oil in skillet in oven until very hot.

Combine buttermilk, egg, sugar, corn meal, baking soda together. Pour in oil from skillet and mix. Pour into oil coated hot skillet. This creates the corn bread crust.

Bake 30 to 40 minutes (depends on oven) until golden brown. You can insert a toothpick in the center to test. If no batter is on the toothpick it's done.

There are many cornbread recipes and this is just one. One suggestion was to add another egg to the batter. I have also made it with regular milk and it worked just fine.  I would love to hear your comments, suggestions, etc.

Copyright 2007-2016 Denise A. Smith