Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-12-20
CORNBREAD AT ITS BEST
a Delicacy Available for Only half the
People.
To Get 1t One Should Live Near an
Old-Fashfoned Mill-Origin
of Hoe Cake.

| WoEtuy OIL the name IS an un-
known quantity to at least half the people
| OF these United States. 1t must remain I'M
known, mores the pity, to a good moiety of
them, since it is to be had in perfection
| only by the fortunate help who can get
| cornmeal straight from the mill. The meal
| OF commerce, kin-dried, bolted and ground
| altogether too fine, is very much of a de-
| fusion and snare.
But II 1t is possible to secure meal fresh
| iy ground from white hint-hard Little Will
lis corn. whose particles round and even
I as fairy hail. 1t is well worth anybody's
| while to know what to do with It, Such
| meal can be bought for 80 or go cents a
! oushel in almost any town or hamlet along
| the Ohio river or throughout the middle
south, the middle west and Virginia. Ma
| tives have a superstition that water
ground meal has a different and more deli
| cate flavor than that from steam mills
out then the natives are connoisseurs in
corn products of every sort from roasting
| ears to. bourbon whisky. Freight charges
east or north will probably bring the price
up to IS cents bushel. At that rate corn
Lheai is sun lar and away the cheapest
food stuff in existence.
The drawback is its knaek Of getting
musty II Kept for any considerable time
10 get around that a dozen families might
send for barrel, and portion it out among
themselves. Not few New York families
order it thus directly from the mills, or
else, in half-bushel packages, at slightly
higher cost. Besides there are several
shrewd and somewhat enterprising old dar-
Keys VINO fetch in the fresh meal in bulk
ana peddie 1t among a round of customers
| IN quantities to suit. Meal from sound
grain, unsifted, or unbolted, will keep for
SIX weeks in a dry, airy place, free of doors
1t Is very susceptible to contamination,
particularly from such things as salt fish
ground coffee, spices, onions and pickles
containing mustard. 1t should never be put
metal nj oar hon
nave bag or sweet wooden receptacle
plentifully ventilated. Sift the meal only
as wanted; the bran serves to ventilate it
| in mass and keep it sweet
Cornmeal, like loneliness needs not the
foreign aid of ornament, but is, when I'M
acorned, adorned the most. That is to
say, the very best sort of cornbread is the
aodger. otherwise poLebread and the hoe
cake. People who do not know confound
hoecake with JohTny-cake. an abomination
| made of cornmeaI, ryemeal, molasses, eggs,
ana heaven alone knows what. 1t may be
worth while to say that the name hoecake
was IN the beginning rendering of literal
Iact. Hollow ware was hollow ware among
the early colopiStS; often family had no
more than a single iron pot for all its cook-
ing. Then the bread was ashcake, cooked
by sweeping clean space right in the
neart OF the fire dropping the dough upon
II, and covering it thickly with glowing
hard wood Goals. Ashcake is toothsome
enough, If only the Goals are hard enough
and hot enough to crust it over before the
Time Indeed, it was the exception rather
than the rule. Then, too, upon hunts and
3"urheyings ashcake was i'll TO come by, so
recourse was had to the big hoes that no
household could be without. Crops of every
sort depended upon the STRINGS of their
broad blades. But they were easily slid off
their wooden helves to serve in the night
or morning baking. They We're flung into
the fire ana heated red hot, then lifted out
by means Of a stick thrust within the eye
spread with thin meal cakes and by help
OF the same stick set back upon spread
coals. In three minutes or so the bread
was done upon the under side. \ knife
Tipped it over; in two minutes more it
was ready fer eating, and the hoe ready for
another cake.
The best meal in the world will not make
good bread if it is mixed too thick, and
baked too slowly. Further it must never
be put into cold pan or on a cold griddle
Pans and griddles, however, can be too hot
They should be lightly sprinkIed with a
pinch of dry meal; if it browns quickly
without burning the heat is just right. Diff
ferent degrees of heat, in fact, make all
the difference in the world in flavor. Corn
meal wet with boiling water has a taste
wholly unlike that which is wet with cold.
Back in the old days the black cooks had
an odd, and to them infallible test, as to
whether a new acquaintance belonged to
quality white folks 1t was the matter of
salt in cornbread. The gentry never al
lowed a dust of it in the bread which came
on their tables, holding rightly enough that
salt spoiled the nutty sweetness of the
Hltdl, ana tnat the fdNOr of salt
should be given by the butter in which
they commonly soaked their bread. Poor
white trash, to whom butter was unknown.
and thrifty farmers folks who preferred
selling their butter to lavish eating thereof,
sailed their bread, some heavily, some
lightly, and very nearly always made it up
with boiling water As a consequence, in
the language of the black mammies: "Hit
did taste so po' folksy. hit want fifteen fer
muffin but pigs ter eat
By cornbread the south country under
stands the thing which is in its own mouth.
pone bread, ard in the middle west dodger
bread. 1t is easy to make, yet not easy
to make exactly right. Mix the sfted meal
with cold water to form a scottish mass. 1t
must not be soft enough to run, nor stiff
enough to hold a spoon upright. Scoop up
painful of it and toss II gently from one
hand to the other, until it forms fattish
oval. Slap the oval down in one side of
your hot pan and hatten it still more with
the fingers. That the first pone. Set
others round about ii until your pan is full,
quick, steady heat Examine il in five
minutes; if the crust is cracking over the
top it needs more fire; if it is blistering ii
needs less. If by good chance you strike
the lucky medium in twenty minutes you
will have corn pones fit for king. When
done the crust should be thin, brown, of a
rich nutty flavor, and separating readily
from the inner mass. If you want to serve
the PONIES after black mammy's fashion,
break-do not cut them-open lengthwise,
lay lump of the very best butter between
the halves, put them together and stand in
the hot oven a minute before sending to
table.
Hoecake is mixed in the same way. only
a little softer, dabbed in round pats on hot
griddle, f1attened to less than inch
baked one side, then tipped over and
finished. Fatty bread is made up with hot
water a very little salt and plenty of
melted lard, and baked in small pones.
Pumpkin and sweet potato bread are but
fatty bread, a little more sailed and mixed
with its own bulk of stewed pumpkin or
boiled and mashed potatoes, before the bak-
ing.
There are nearly many sorts of egg
bread, corn mullins, gems and batter cakes
as there are hOusekeepers south of Mason
and Dixons line. One of the best and most
wholesome is mush bread. To make it take
a quart of fairly thick cold mush, stir into
it three well-beaten eggs, whites and yolks
together. a pinch of sale, half a cup of
melted lard, and half cup of rich, sweet
milk. Beat hard for ten minutes, then pour
into a greasy pan and bake in very hot
oven By adding a full cup of milk and a
half pint of sifted flour you have very
excellent muffin batter, to be baked either
in rings gem pans. cup of hot water
or an extra cup of milk gives very fine bat
ter cakes. But to serve with breakfast
.isl oh;n