Cornbread can be traced back hundreds of years to Native America. Native Americans grew maize (corn) used it for dishes such as cakes, breads, and soups (Kaminsky 1). They knew how to dry and grind maize into corn meal, and they shared their knowledge with the earliest of European settlers. The settlers incorporated corn meal into their bread baking, creating cornbread (Barbour 1). Cornbread sustained the early settlers, and it is one of the most important foods in American history. 

Before the Civil War, cornbread was the national food of America. No matter if one lived in the North or the South, or if someone was poor, a slave, an aristocrat, or just an average family, they were going to eat cornbread everyday and usually more than once a day. It was easy to bake, easy to preserve, and there was an abundance of different ingredients one could use to make it. When it could be cooked appropriately and with the right ingredients and equipment, it was served with almost any meal. Soldiers fighting in the Civil War, even created what was called “ramrod” versions. They would use their ration of cornmeal, mixed with water and salt if they had any, wrapped the pasty batter around the rifle ramrods in a spiral, and cooked it over their campfires. It was tasteless and rock-hard, but it kept the soldiers alive (Kamnisky 2). One of the great advantages of cornbread is that it keeps well and does not need to rise like yeast breads do. As wheat became more commonly and inexpensively produced in the late nineteenth century, wheat bread and biscuits displaced cornbread as America’s staple food.

Cornbread, however, has endured, and it can still be found in many shapes and forms. Many people tend to generalize cornbread specifically only to the South and Southwest, but it is actually a common quick bread served all over the nation. For example, if someone comes from a southern background, they are probably familiar with an unsweetened, skillet cornbread with a harder, crispy crust (Keller 1). Some Southerners see cornbread as a comfort food reminding them of their childhood or past. Some will even crumble up leftover cornbread into a glass of milk and eat it with a spoon as a snack before bedtime or in the morning. People with Northern roots in the New England states are more familiar with Boston or Vermont brown bread, a moist bread containing cornmeal and other flours that is steam cooked in a can, studded with raisins, and sweetened with molasses or maple syrup (Keller 2). In the regions further west, like Texas and New México, Mexican traditions and practices have come about such as baking with jalapenos, corn kernels, and cheese in their cornbread (Wall 2). The types of ingredients available have a lot to do with the different styles of cornbread for each region. There are many choices of corn meals to choose from also, including grainy, gritty stone ground meals to the fine-as-flour versions, to white or yellow meals depending on the variety of corn used for milling (Keller 3). Ingredients for cornbread can be as simple as water and salt, or more elaborate versions might include milk or buttermilk, eggs, sugar, butter and a leavening agent.

Lexicographer: J. T. Del Tufo, Mercer University