All cornbread needs a little sugar, some cornbread needs a whole lot.
Cake needs sugar. Weirdly, there is a divide in the south between how whites and blacks make cornbread, and there are all sorts of explanations. White southerners generally don’t use sugar, or very little. Black southerners use a lot of sugar. There’s all sorts of speculation as to why, but apparently African Americans took cornbread with them on the great migration, and Northerners, white and black, use lots of sugar if they make cornbread.
Jiffy cornbread mix has lots of sugar, and one theory is that its flavor profile became popular among African Americans, but not whites.
I had never tasted cornbread with sugar in it until I dated a girl from Minnesota after college. I thought it was the greatest thing ever, but I also thought she was the greatest thing ever. Opinions change.
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Just how I saw things growing up, and thus my ways are set:
Cornbread with beans/chili/greens/whatever: not sweet
Cornbread as snack/dessert/breakfast with jelly/honey/milk/whatever: sweet
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Cornbread should never be sweet, though it does need a pinch of sugar. We’ve had lengthy discussions on this before.
And no self respecting Southerner needs a recipe for cornbread.
Hell no, a self-respecting Southerner would just get his maid to make it.
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A man needs a maid.
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My maternal grandparents used to make hot water cornbread in a cast iron skillet. It was so good with a little butter and honey or molasses or sweet sorghum. I think I’ll try to make some.
I am Southern, I think, and I’ll eat cornbread sometimes, but I do not like it all that much. Will I be drummed out of the corps?
We can start our own counter-corps. I don’t like grits.
Oh, man. I hate grits and will not eat them.
They are great baked in a casserole with garlic cheese. I can’t eat the gruel type recipe.
The only use I’ve found for grits is shrimp and, which is delicious when done right.
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I used to love the cornbread at Z Tejas but since it exited our dinner rotation many years ago I’m not sure I’ve had cornbread at all (not counting it being used as the base in dressing). Just not my thing.
And rice? Unless I’m eating sushi or Tex-Mex (in which case I mix the rice and beans) I don’t eat rice.
As the English say, grits is good.
Kris gets rice grits for shrimp and grits. They’re great.
ETA: White Rice Grits
No this is a HH peccadillo I do remember.
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I have nothing but love for grits, just like any other delivery vehicle for butter and salt.
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A well-done braise on a bed of creamy polenta is one of life’s great pleasures. Perhaps the name change will be enough to prevent the anti-grits folks from missing out on that.
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The honey butter was what made that
The Lee Brothers have an excellent recipe for grits that changed how I thought of them. It calls for significant quantities of bacon, bacon fat and cheddar cheese.
I do not think of them. I also do not eat them.