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C O L O N I A L C O R N B R E A D R E C I P E
2 1/2 cups cornmeal
2 cups milk
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon salt
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup butter
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1/2 cup butter
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1/4 cup lard
1 cup sugar
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Stir cornmeal into meat and let soak overnight. In the morning, beat in flour sifted with dry ingredients. Add eggs and creamed butter or butter and lard. Beat in sugar. Put into 2 well buttered loaf pans (9 x 5 x 3 inches) and bake in a hot oven until golden, about 25 minutes.
It took me about fourty-five minutes, less cleanup to make cornbread using the above modern recipe. I preheated the oven to 425°F. Then I blended the ingredients for about two minutes. I poured the resulting mixture into a greased 8 x 8 x 2 pan and put it in the oven for about twenty minutes.
This modern recipe took me considerably less time than a colonial recipe to make. Some of them required me to soak the corn meal in milk overnight! Also, the oven temperatures were usually 'guesstimates'.
The colonial time recipe offered no exact temperature, as in a colonial oven, it was very dificult to regulate the temperature. Few ovens were equipped with temperature gauges. You usually had to 'guess' the amount of wood and pre-heating time, and then hope for the best.
I only had a few difficulties while making the corn bread. When I was opening the container of corn meal, I pulled the string that said pull here to open, and the string came off. But the container didn't open. I had to open it with a knife. I also had a hard time finding the correct size pan. After digging through the kitchen cabinets for several minutes, I decided to borrow one from a neighbor. Cleanup wasn't that difficult. I just rinsed off the corn meal batter (it came right off) and put everything in the dishwasher.
