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No sugar, no flour, bacon grease, iron skillet. Anything else is not cornbread to me.

I'm not a southerner. The closest I've ever gotten to the south is Washington DC.

I find that sugary stuff disgusting. The things they sell as cornbread at Boston Market should be frosted and sold as cupcakes.

In our household, all members of the house except me cut open their cornbread and pour syrup or honey on top. I think that is so disgusting I can hardly stand to be at the same table as the rest of them, but to each his own. I also don't care for cornbread except maybe once or twice a decade, but we have to have it once or twice a month. Oh well. Sacrifice is the passion of great souls, as someone somewhere said.

Bacon grease is the secret, fo' sho'. But then again, doesnt bacom bmake everything better?

I'm a southerner, and I like both! Definitely ate no-sugar cornbread growing up (in the cast iron molds shaped like ears of corn...) but one of my favorite recipes now is from the Richmond, Va. Junior League cookbook. Blue Ribbon Cornbread- and it has a touch of sugar. Love them both.

It varies. Southerners make both dry/salty cornbread and sweet/moist cornbread. (I refer you to my two Georgian-born-and-bread grandmothers. One makes it sweet and cakey; the other salty and sandy. The debate - hell, fight!- will last to the death. Literally.)

Although "sweet" by Southern standards does not seem to be the same as "sweet" by Northern standards. Southerners use sweeteners (usually honey) to enhance the corn flavor; in some Northern cornbread, it's the only flavor. Really, I think that's the key. For Southerners, corn - usually fresh - is the star of the show. Cornmeal alone just doesn't cut it.

I prefer savory cornbread myself. But I think Palapa Azul's Sweet Corn ice cream has to be the best thing ever made from corn:

http://www.palapaazul.com/product.php?pid=16

I like both - I used to work at a restaurant that made a sweet, moist, cakey cornbread to die for. I also like it super old-fashioned dipped in molasses!

But I also like it a little drier and savory with sage or bacon and collard greens.

Any recommendations for fats to use in cornbread if no bacon fat is available?

michelle: lard is first choice. the drippings out of a cast iron pan that has had any salty meat cooked in it (cut with canola oil if you need more), sausage drippings, etc. will also do. barring that, you can find some 'healthy' shortening at some grocery stores, basically a cleaned up version of crisco that doesn't have hydrogenated oils in it.


and why can't i answer the survey? (#3!)

I hear all the debates,but can someone post the recipe for the cornbread in the photo please? Thanks

Jaudre - it's there in the image credit.
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=257354#

Enjoy!

I grew up in Pennsylvania and I hate sweet corn bread. I have given up on most restaurant corn bread because they are always too cakey. The one exception is Perkins. They make really good corn muffins - just the natural sweetness of corn and the grittiness of real corn meal in every bit. Delicious grilled and buttered. Sadly they do not seem to have them at every location.

I'll take cornbread of any style: savory, sweet, cakey, dry, full of veggies and herbs, cheese, from the skillet... all of it. There's a kind of cornbread for any meal.

My Grandmother was from Louisiana, she passed on sweet cornbread to my mother, both sides of my Texas family have always had it sweet. I have never heard that sweet cornbread is for Yankees.

Growing up my mom would buy those little mixes (Jiffy, the blue box) and man were they sweet. My dad loved it! I moved out years ago, and he still talks about the cornbread I'd make...