CORN BREAD/SPOON BREAD are simple old recipes from the deep South in Louisiana. They traveled to the ladies who gave me the recipes around a half century ago, and they are still delicious today...they bring the Bayou Food Culture right into your home and to your taste buds and stomach!

CORNBREAD

Julieanna from New Orleans was a friend of Cecelia's in the French Quarter. They were both Creole, but told me this was, and I wrote it as she spelled it: "Por'tuge Brazilian Cornbread" which was her 'best recipe'. I had some with thick black coffee-with-chick'ry over at Cecelia's Gift Boutique in the Quarter when I was nineteen years old...I thought of myself as very grown up indeed, with my Dad's bit of a drawl to match their soft Creole accents, I was certain....
So:

Combine four beaten eggs, five tablespoons of rich butter, one and 1/2 cups of white cane sugar, one and 1/2 cups of white flour sifted with one and 1/2 cups of stoneground cornmeal, a pinch of salt, and one and 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder. combine this mix with one overflowing cup of warm, whole milk and stir in Erva Doce, which is an oil of anise - just a drop of two...if you don't have the oil, then a couple of pinches of anise powder will do...if neither, then you'll have to do without! (a note: this recipe calls for one and 1/2 cups More of Sugar! You can try that - but today's times call for a less sweet cornbread taste....)

Combine all the ingredients into a light, fluffy mix and Do Not over-mix! Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes in a nice square lightly-buttered tin...when it's cooled out on a rack, sprinkle a small amount of sugar and salt very lightly on top...most folks don't take it out of the pan - they cut the squares of it right in the pan.

What my Gramma Everitt and also Lilly Bea, and Cora - the Louisiana Family Cooks, used to make, more than Cornbread, was Spoon Bread...
Here's the Everitt Family Recipe for Spoon Bread, which is a Corn Bread...and, this is GOOD!

SPOON BREAD

Pour one cup of ground corn meal into one pint of boiling water with one teaspoon of salt in it. Stir for one minute. Remove from the fire. Add two tablespoons of butter, beat well into the cornmeal mix. Add four beaten eggs one by one and then on cup of cold milk. Beat again into cake batter. Pour into a hot buttered baking dish. Bake twenty-five minutes in a 'hot oven'. Serve from the baking dish when it's still warm, but not hot...

So, there they are...two 'old timey' recipes, but, tried and true...There are as many recipes for Corn Bread as there are Southern Cooks. These are 'mine' and I'm fond of them...they have no Poems to honor them. They honor themselves with their delicious warmth and fine nutrition. They hit the spot. There are few Southern Meals without a Cornmeal Product somewhere round and about...enjoy the crunch....