Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-10-14
The Real Southern Corn Bread.
[Country Gentleman.1

/
Eds. Country Gentleman-WiN yor
allow country gentlewoman space to
comment on the astonishing lack OF ac-
quaintance with the merits of corn
meal displayed by some recent cores
pondents?
Corn bread has always been the hot
dinner bread in typical southern homes
and to the accustomed palate it ac-
companies boiled vegetables, game and
| fish with a relish that wheat bread can
not give.
Transplanted from city life some
eight years ago, I was delighted to FIND
that the mountaineers certainly under
stood how to handle corn meal. Their
wheat biscuit are half cooked and
wholly indigestible, but their corn bread
far surpasses our Atlanta article. My
husband northerner - invariably
prefers 1T at dinner, and no dainty can
tempt him from his mush and milk
supper, which is served him the year
around. Occasionally we have boarders,
generally northern people, who at first
from curiosity or a desire to be socia-
BILE join him in his favorite dish. Not
|infrequently they too form the "n,ush-
had to invest in larger boiler!
Our southern friends already to tbs
manner born detect at once the SUI
perior quality of the mountain pro-
duct. This is due, as your corn meal
defender points out, to the grains be-
ing ground cOarser and to the sifter's
being of large mesh. These city friends
are so impressed with this that they
often take home poke" full ready.
sifted, as neither city kitchens nor city
stores, as rule, are furnished with the
coarse sitter. Visitors all the way from
Boston have sent back for graham
-four, ground at the little mountain mill
flour that can not be duplicated in the
city. Once we found it at a grain and
feed store, but It's very character was
changed after being bolted thru fine
sitter.
While visiting the north, have not
wondered at the prejudice against corn
meal. could never care for the bread
made from the yellow meal 1t lacks
the sweetness and flavor of the white
meal, and If 1t is made up with boiling
water. as your correspondent says he
knows is the way to make 1t, Go not
wonder at the result. / spoke of the
mountain bread being superior to our
Atlanta product. This is due not alone
to the coarser meal; there our corn
"dodger" was made up with cold wa
ter or sweet milk, but here l have
learned to mix the meal with butter
milk and cold water-about one-th third
water to two-thirds butternill1, having
previously sifted soda and salt with the
meal. The quantity of soda would vary
with the acidity of the milk; but corn
meal does not require as much soda as
wheat flour to tighten it, probably ow-
ing to its looser texture.
The dough should be thoroughly
worked with the hands, as 1t becomes
more cohesive on manipulation. After
forming into "pone" in your bread
pan, 1t should be placed on the rack
of the stove, until deep-brown crust
is formed, before transferring 1t to the
bottom of the oven to bake underneath
Just the opposite method from bak-
ing wheat bread. It takes from twenty
minutes to half an hour to cook prop
erly;; and If you are lucky enough to
have a dish of specified trout fried a
delicate brown, or a broiled partridge,
or even the more easily procured
smothered spareribs or backbone. to go
with 1t, you would hardly miss the un-
sympathetic biscuits ard puritanical
yeast breads of less epicurean feasts!
MRS. DONALD WILSON.
Cherokee County. N. c.
Snap Shots.
The preachers who run away from sin
will travel far.
A lost character involves long hunt.
Doubt has long fingers and reaches
many hearts.
A blackmailer is one who turns him-
self inside out.
Sin is like snake: it wiggles in and
out, coils itself in sunny spots, and de-
tends itself with a poisonous sting
A bankrupt always has left a stock
of excuses.
The assurance of death is frequently
comforting,
The man with an ak TO grind is not