still disagree, you are guessing people who headed out for a new homestead didn't leave with just the shirt on there backs
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The Search for a Vintage Cornbread
- Thread starter Loyalist Dave
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Brokennock
Cannon
That's a leap.
From maybe they didn't lead a cow through the wilderness to, "they left with just the shirt on their backs." How do you bridge that chasm?
Crawfish, frogs, and snails were considered food by the French but that kind of thing wasn’t immediately accepted by English colonists. South Louisiana culture is still heavily influenced by French culture and we ate things that were foreign to upland south and East coast residents. I’m trying to remember more on this from a cultural geography class at LSU in 1970 but my mental filing system is coming up empty.
I’m following this post with great interest. This is important stuff and I can add that there were two major differences in cornbread in Louisiana. My family prepared the Upland South style my mother grew up with and it had a pretty hard crust as baked in a cast iron skillet. Below Interstate 10 “particularly New Orleans” you more often saw the softer (sometimes nearly cake soft) cornbread with a noticeable sugar content. Some say the difference is that sugar and wheat flour to add to the cornbread were more readily available in the port city.
In the very rural northern parts of the mid south you had dirt farmers who were poor compered to the coastal city folks. Slavery was legal but none of my folks from Louisiana, Mississippi or Tennessee owned slaves.
They might have been ok with the idea if they’d had the money but records show they were poor and no doubt happy with their coarser cornbread. My wife’s folks were from New Orleans and ate a sweeter softer cornbread as was common there.
In the very rural northern parts of the mid south you had dirt farmers who were poor compered to the coastal city folks. Slavery was legal but none of my folks from Louisiana, Mississippi or Tennessee owned slaves.
They might have been ok with the idea if they’d had the money but records show they were poor and no doubt happy with their coarser cornbread. My wife’s folks were from New Orleans and ate a sweeter softer cornbread as was common there.
My mom grew up in the 1920's in south GA. Her cornbread was made from white, non rising corn meal, no added soda, no baking powder, just salt and a little ground black pepper (it may have included a little buttermilk), made in a shallow cast iron skillet on a stove top, and about 1/2" thick. I'm guessing her recipe was handed down from her mother, grandmother, etc. How far back that recipe goes is a guess. Pour the mix in a greased shallow cast iron skillet, flip it once to cook the other side, then serve. Not the cornbread that people typically make today.
Try frying each recipe or experiment. Make patties. (Johnny cakes, Hoe Cakes) use lard to fry.Cornbread is rather universal in many camps at living history events, and may come in all sorts of variations. I am experimenting with some "de-engineering" of the dish, to see exactly what a person on the frontier might have produced. Reason being, historic sources don't necessarily give you what "the poor" were making to eat. A lot of folks on a subsistence living style might also not be able to read, or perhaps were not able to spend money for a book that told them to use ingredients that they could not afford, or more properly may not have been available to due distance, time of the year, etc.
(The Following is SWAG Conjecture)...
The first thing that I did was removed the wheat flour. Wheat is labor intensive, and could be expensive in the days when folks crossed the Appalachian Mountains looking to homestead. I also removed the milk, as although some folks might have had an English Red-Cow for milk, that may have been a luxury. That left me with corn products, water, salt, and eggs. It would be a lot easier to take two to three laying hens West, than to take them and a cow, and the eggs would be a good source of protein.
Now they would have wood ash because they would have campfires and after the cabin was built, a hearth and fireplace. So they could've made hominy. If they were grinding dent corn or flint corn, then they could also grind the hominy. When one gets the hominy ground to a fine flour, you have Masa flour. Well known in Mexico and farther South, but I wondered IF it was known by another name on the early American frontier. SO ... I used Masa flour and eggs. I also added a bit of vinegar, because that would be easy to carry along too.
(I also know full well that I may discover that the earliest was cornpone or spoon bread, but this experimental archaeology doesn't take up too much of my time)
Here's the recipe
MASA CORN BREAD
First Recipe 03/04/2024
2 Cups Masa Corn Flour
2 whole eggs
½ tablespoon of baking powder
2½ - 3 cups water
½ teaspoon salt.
1 Nine-inch pie tin, buttered
Oven preheated to 400°F
Wooden spoon
Mix dry ingredients. Add the eggs and mix, and finally add the water, two cups first, then as you stir the mixture, add water until the dough become more like a batter. Pour into buttered pie tin, and then place the filled pie tin into the oven. I used a buttered aluminum tin, but you could use lard or sweet oil and a cast iron skillet or a Dutch Oven...
Bake for 30 minutes, perhaps longer. Remove and allow to cool before cutting.
RESULTS:
Crumb was present but loaf was still a little dough-like, and bottom had only started to brown. Be sure your oven temp is correct, and a good pre-heat is an excellent idea. Taste was very much the same as a corn tortilla or pupusa, which was to be expected. Adding salted butted improved the taste.
View attachment 300775 View attachment 300776
So the next experiment is to see what happens without the baking powder, a 19th century product. I will do one without anything, and then one using ash from the fire, and see if any leavening happens. NOW I could use Soda Ash aka Sodium Carbonate (not Sodium BIcarbonate) but that wasn't a patented item until 1791, so a little "late" for wide use in baking in the 18th century,....,
I could try Ammonium Carbonate, aka hartshorn, but..., it's historically accurate for cookies (biscuits for you British folks) but thin cookies, not quick breads, because in a thicker mass a strong ammonia smell gets trapped, which is cooked off when baking cookies.
I also found that Sodium Bicarbonate is a 19th century thing....
And Again...., I may find that cornpone, spoonbread, or perhaps corn fritters were the simplest forms of bread, and not really documented because the folks resorting to those on a daily basis had more important things to do than keep a detailed journal, etc.
LD
Thats just a old saying what I meant by that was they took along more supplies than we may think. For the time they were more prepare than most give them credit for
No I am referring to what they got when released from indenture.
For example:
1705 Virginia legislation held that a Male servant upon leaving indenture got ten bushels of corn, thirty shillings value in goods, and a musket worth at least twenty shillings. Women got fifteen bushels of corn and the equivalent of forty shillings of goods.
"Goods" are not livestock in this legislation. Some places they got less.
Highly skilled indentures like one of the carpenters that worked on Gunston Hall, near to Mount Vernon got wages, room, and board, as well as clothing, but these were not the majority of the workers.
Source: Encyclopedia Virginia: "Indentured Servants in Colonial Virginia", Brendan Wolfe...
LD
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I would think a vintage corn bread would be hard as a rock after all these years and not fit fer eatin'.
Last edited:
Eutycus
Cannon
Way back in one of the earlier posts the disease of Pellagra was brought up. Interesting, it makes one think of the skinny and starving POWs at Andersonville. An article that I read on the subject states that alot of the "starvation" which brought on those skeletal appearances was actually from lack of vitamin B. Food was supplied, just not alot of it, but most of it was in the form of corn bread and corn products along with husks and cob particals. Yankee bodies just could not absorb the needed vitamins. I doubt Pellgra and vitamins were even known back then. I still contend there was no deliberate starvation taking place. The POWs ate what the guards ate.
Oh the recipes on the back of the corn meal package are not bad. Both packets and boxes carry them. Improvise.
Oh the recipes on the back of the corn meal package are not bad. Both packets and boxes carry them. Improvise.
Eutycus
Cannon
Ok thanks
Brokennock
Cannon
For sure. I can definitely agree with that. I just don't think livestock was a large part of it for poorer folks, of folks who hadn't cleared, maybe hadn't even marked, their plot yet.
Brokennock
Cannon
No "bodies" could. They still can't.
If a vitamin or nutrient isn't bioavailable from a given plant source, it isn't bioavailable and that is all there is to it. Unless corn is put through the nixtamalization (spelling?) process the vitamin B isn't available for humans to absorb.
A better and more current example is Omega-3 fatty acid, lack of this wasn't an issue when folks ate lots of grass fed, grass finished red meat, beef. Grain fed beef doesn't have nearly as much and has way too much Omega-6, omega-3s opposite.
Now folks try to supplement with Flax seed,,,, Omega-3 is in flax seed, but it isn't bioavailable to humans. Eating flax seed, or consuming the oil does not give humans a significant amount of the nutrient.
Unfortunately, unlike corn (the old varieties), there doesn't seem to be a process by which to change this.... Eat grass fed, grass finished beef amd wild caught salmon
....... and some cornbread made with masa 
Eutycus
Cannon
My ggg grandfather was one step below being dirt poor but I recall seeing a "Milch Cow" and some chickens on the census report.
Brokennock
Cannon
Did he bring it west with him from where he came from, or get the cow after he established his home.
Also, out of curiosity, do you know how he got where he ended up? Horse, on foot with a pack animal or two, wagon?
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Dave, have you tried corn dodgers? I made some and served them with beans at lodge 2 weeks ago. They were a huge hit.Cornbread is rather universal in many camps at living history events, and may come in all sorts of variations. I am experimenting with some "de-engineering" of the dish, to see exactly what a person on the frontier might have produced. Reason being, historic sources don't necessarily give you what "the poor" were making to eat. A lot of folks on a subsistence living style might also not be able to read, or perhaps were not able to spend money for a book that told them to use ingredients that they could not afford, or more properly may not have been available to due distance, time of the year, etc.
(The Following is SWAG Conjecture)...
The first thing that I did was removed the wheat flour. Wheat is labor intensive, and could be expensive in the days when folks crossed the Appalachian Mountains looking to homestead. I also removed the milk, as although some folks might have had an English Red-Cow for milk, that may have been a luxury. That left me with corn products, water, salt, and eggs. It would be a lot easier to take two to three laying hens West, than to take them and a cow, and the eggs would be a good source of protein.
Now they would have wood ash because they would have campfires and after the cabin was built, a hearth and fireplace. So they could've made hominy. If they were grinding dent corn or flint corn, then they could also grind the hominy. When one gets the hominy ground to a fine flour, you have Masa flour. Well known in Mexico and farther South, but I wondered IF it was known by another name on the early American frontier. SO ... I used Masa flour and eggs. I also added a bit of vinegar, because that would be easy to carry along too.
(I also know full well that I may discover that the earliest was cornpone or spoon bread, but this experimental archaeology doesn't take up too much of my time)
Here's the recipe
MASA CORN BREAD
First Recipe 03/04/2024
2 Cups Masa Corn Flour
2 whole eggs
½ tablespoon of baking powder
2½ - 3 cups water
½ teaspoon salt.
1 Nine-inch pie tin, buttered
Oven preheated to 400°F
Wooden spoon
Mix dry ingredients. Add the eggs and mix, and finally add the water, two cups first, then as you stir the mixture, add water until the dough become more like a batter. Pour into buttered pie tin, and then place the filled pie tin into the oven. I used a buttered aluminum tin, but you could use lard or sweet oil and a cast iron skillet or a Dutch Oven...
Bake for 30 minutes, perhaps longer. Remove and allow to cool before cutting.
RESULTS:
Crumb was present but loaf was still a little dough-like, and bottom had only started to brown. Be sure your oven temp is correct, and a good pre-heat is an excellent idea. Taste was very much the same as a corn tortilla or pupusa, which was to be expected. Adding salted butted improved the taste.
View attachment 300775 View attachment 300776
So the next experiment is to see what happens without the baking powder, a 19th century product. I will do one without anything, and then one using ash from the fire, and see if any leavening happens. NOW I could use Soda Ash aka Sodium Carbonate (not Sodium BIcarbonate) but that wasn't a patented item until 1791, so a little "late" for wide use in baking in the 18th century,....,
I could try Ammonium Carbonate, aka hartshorn, but..., it's historically accurate for cookies (biscuits for you British folks) but thin cookies, not quick breads, because in a thicker mass a strong ammonia smell gets trapped, which is cooked off when baking cookies.
I also found that Sodium Bicarbonate is a 19th century thing....
And Again...., I may find that cornpone, spoonbread, or perhaps corn fritters were the simplest forms of bread, and not really documented because the folks resorting to those on a daily basis had more important things to do than keep a detailed journal, etc.
LD
I've also made hoe-cakes with water, no milk. That would make it super simple to make.
Eutycus
Cannon
He didn't trek out west, he stayed right here in Texas. I have no idea how he acquired the animals. Pretty sure it was all by foot from the coast.
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Whiskey comes to mindAH YES I was wondering about saturation of the meal be it corn meal or hominy flour (masa). GREAT info.
ONE of the major problems appears to be that earlier than the 1790's, folks may have thought a super simple pone, or the above recipe bread, was for the poor, or for Indians ......, so they might mention the food in a journal but not much about it..., because they as authors weren't "poor" themselves and surely wouldn't admit to LIKING the poor person or Indian food... "heaven forbid"
..., the dregs of society or the savages making something tasty?
EGAD!
AND some of those poor frontier folks might even be..., dare I write this???.... Scotch Irish! (btw they were referred to as Scotch Irish with a "ch" on the end back then...)
(Can't admit that THOSE PEOPLE might be producing something good....)
LD
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