Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Cornbread, Yellow or White Cornmeal?

When I grew up, my mom made cornbread once in a while for dinner. Now, it was not served with meat or soup or any main dish. It was the main dish. She served it with butter and syrup on top. That, with a big glass or milk made a pretty good meal. No, we are not originally from the South where cornbread was a main fixin'. We were from Michigan. Now, my mom always used yellow cornmeal for her cornbread and it was a little sweet like Jiffy cornbread mix is today. After I married my southern husband, I more often ate cornbread made by his mom. She always made it with a cornmeal mix that had white cornmeal in it. She never put sugar in it so it was not sweet. Sometimes she put chitlins in it. What are chitlins? I think it is some part of a pig. Not my favorite kind of cornbread. On Sunday afternoon, I decided to make some cornbread out of a mix I got with a coupon. It was Martha White cornbread mix and it was white, like my mother-in-law's. It ended up tasting just like hers too. Now she was a great cook, but I will confess that even today, I like my mom's yellow and sweet cornbread best.