Use a 12” cast iron skillet.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
4 cups corn meal
1 and 1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 or 3 cups butter milk (see below)*
3 to 4 tablespoons bacon fat
Prepare the skillet. (A good cast iron skillet is pretty much required though
you can try 'most anything.) Put skillet with bacon fat in oven and let it get
real hot while you are mixing the devil out out the other stuff.
Dissolve soda in buttermilk. Mix corn meal with salt , eggs, and buttermilk.
* Add enough buttermilk so that the batter is smooth...somewhere between 2 and 3 cups. Experimentation is encouraged. Watch the skillet in the oven. When it is almost smoking, take it out, pour in the batter. It should be hot enough that it’ll sizzle. Pop it back in the oven. Bake until it cracks and browns on top and pulls away from the sides. Take it out of the oven. Whack the skillet on a wooden cutting board to dislodge the cornbread.
Cut in wedges. Add butter and honey!
Recipe from Paul Nelson - KHOI volunteer, chief engineer and a frequent consumer of cornbread with black eyed peas and ham.
Making cornbread is like making love.
No matter where you do it, it’s called the same thing
But how you do it makes a heap o’ difference.
.... from the book The Cooking of Black America