Being of the Southern persuasion, I grew up eating cornbread as a side for all types of Southern food. And also because of said Southern persuasion, I grew up eating cornbread made without sugar. But I did grow up in the generation of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix (notice they call it corn ‘muffin’, not corn ‘bread’ – I don’t think that was unintentional). So it’s not like I was never exposed to the sweet style of cornbread more popular in the North, I just prefer the Southern-style.
Here’s just one more catch-up post (I hope!), so that I can tell you about these delicious Tuesdays with Dorie recipes I’ve made, but haven’t been able to find time to share until today (ignoring piles of laundry that need folding).
Last night we had a traditional Southern “vegetable plate” for dinner – collard greens, field peas, fried squash and eggplant, and pepper relish. After informing my husband of the menu, he promptly gave me the “Where’s the beef?” look, which reminded me of this month’s Kitchen Reader‘s book selection, Julie & Julia. In the book Julie Powell recounts her year spent cooking through Julia Child’s classic cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and blogging about it at the same time. In the early pages of the book Julie recalls one of the first recipes she made from the book, a potato and leek soup, and how her husband Eric told her it was “Really good. And there wasn’t even any meat in it.” And that because he is Texan by birth “the idea of a dinner without animal flesh gets him a little panicky”. But apparently there is no lack of meat dishes in Julia’s cookbook, with recipes ranging from Boeuf Bourguignon to Rognons deVeau (veal kidneys) so he didn’t have to worry about that part of things.
Shortbread 