Here a couple or three weeks ago, I ran out of cornmeal...I was at the local super Walmarts and all I could find was the boxed kinds of cornmeal with sugar already added. I don't know if all southern gals are like me and my childhood friends, but the kind with sugar just does not fill the bill. I was sort of getting desperate, thinking I was going to have to have my sister-in-law/best friend mail me some. However, when I went to our local IGA, they still carried the above in 5lb bags. I was tempted to buy two or three and put the extras in the freezer....but not real sure if that would be the thing to do.
All I could think though, was how times have changed. When I was a kid, I think all the women in and around our community bought cornmeal and flour by the 25 lb. sacks. I think all of our moms made biscuits every morning of our life, except maybe my mom missed a couple days a year if she was sick. My mom always loved White Lily flower...and I remember her being upset when the stores quit carrying that brand. And my friend's mom always loved Three Rivers brand cornmeal...I don't recall what brand of cornmeal my mom preferred.And when I still had three brothers at home, mom always made two pans of cornbread every day of the week. And a bigger pan than the one pictured above. Probably ten inch pans...and it was eaten for the most part. If there was any left, it went to the dogs or the pigs. But my brothers and my mom always loved to crumble cornbread in a glass and pour milk over it and eat it that way...that was one thing I didn't care for. And I don't even know if I tried it, I think it was partly that it wasn't visually appealing for me.
When I first came to Indiana I finally got till I could eat the sweet kind but it was never satisfying. Then my husband and I moved to Tennessee for a year and a half back when we were young, in 1978. Since then, I seriously doubt if I have eaten even one piece of the sweetened cornbread. I just don't like it. And for sure not with the foods I want cornbread with.
Now it took my husband a while to actually like my kind of cornbread, but he does like it. And both my girls like both kinds, and my youngest requested a cast iron pan for Christmas and has actually made some cornbread of her own. She is like me and likes it just for a snack every now and then. I have two favorite meals that require cornbread....I love wilted lettuce and onions and cornbread....my mouth just waters thinking about that.
And the other is something that no one else here eats, and that is spinach (or mustard or poke salad) and bacon and cornbread. I don't fix it very often, but every now and then I will have that for breakfast if it is just me that will be eating. Or supper or a midnight snack. No matter when I have it, it is delicious and I eat way too much of it.
