I have a recipe for cornbread that I found on line many years ago. I use that whenever I can locate some good local corn meal. Mine has a bit of sweetness, but it is probably more like the first one listed in the article. The missus doesn't care for it much, so I make it only when we are going to share.

I grew up in Texas where all cornbread that I ever had was unsweetened. I only encountered sweet cornbread when I moved to California and ate at Marie Callender's. I had no idea that there was a racial bias to sweetened vs. unsweetened cornbread. Fascinating.

The only corn bread I like is Jiffy and its sweet!

Interesting! I grew up choking down my dad's unsweetened cornbread with as much butter as I could slather on, obviously I wasn't a fan.

Then when we got married my husband made sweet cornbread and the gates parted, angels sing, so THIS is what it should taste like!

To this day, I can only eat cornbread if we make it as everyone else around here makes the unsweetened kind.

I grew up on the unsweetened kind, but once I tasted it with sugar at my best friend's house, I started using just a little sugar. Always bake it in the oven in a cast-iron skillet.

Didn't know it was a racial thing; didn't know anybody ate it sweet, as in adding sugar. I Like it not sweet with tons of butter and jalapeño pepper bits added to it. But, oh me, trying to be good, I eat it rarely and is an overindulgence these days.

I despise sweetened cornbread, unless it's served with frosting on top. Blech.

My recipe is corny, made with stoneground cornmeal, and not at all cakey like Jiffymix.

I'm not convinced about the racial divide regarding cornmeal preferences.

My mouth is watering. love ANY kind of cornbread/cake/muffin/johnnycake/etc!

No sugar in the cornbread from my kitchen! First time I was served sweetened cornbread, I was sooo disappointed. I don't want cake with my black-eyed peas or butter beans and greens...or anything else. But, people like what they like. So nice that we can have choices and exercise our preferences.

The article was interesting reading, for sure!

My grandmother never sweetened corn bread, and used coarse cornmeal. My father loves Jiffy Mix, which I think is way too sweet. I use the recipe for 'Bacon Cornettes' from the Better Homes cookbook that I was given as a wedding present. It calls for sugar, but not much. I omit the bacon, reduce the sugar, use 1/4 part white cornmeal, 1/4 yellow cornmeal, 1/4 AP flour, and 1/4 whole wheat flour, and usually bake it in a preheated skillet, for a crispy bottom, not a muffin tin as suggested, although if I'm taking it somewhere else I'll use the muffin tins for individual servings. Lol, that doesn't sound much like the original recipe. I guess I'm on the fence about the sugar.

My family traditions didn't include cornbread but I like it and I'm also in the "no sugar" group. There's a hideous product in stores that some people like called Hawaiian Rolls - dinner rolls sweetened with sugar in the batter. They're simply awful.

For those who care about things, most of Jiffy's products (including the Corn Bread mix) contain transfats. I went to buy the mix awhile back for a cornbread casserole recipe we were going to try and there it was on the ingredient list. In my area, there's a Marie Callender mix and it has a more healthy ingredient list and no transfats. I think I also found a suitable mix for a later batch at either Trader Joes or Whole Foods.

Not on my computer right now, can't check, but do know, my recipe "from scratch" has sugar, and corn kernels in it.

No sweet cornbread here.

I like cornbread period any kind. I eat sweet I eat unsweetened, I love it with blobs of cream cheese in the batter, bite into a warm bite of that yummy. I like it with actual corn in it I don't care for jalapeños though. And I absolutely love it as a pancake, my mom used to make me cornbread pancakes for breakfast with butter all over them.

I like savory cornbread...and I'm not choosey as long as it isn't dry. Plain, corn, jalapeno, bacon....I'm game, pass the plate ;-)

But, a little restaurant with salad/soup bar that my mother used to like to go to had little (maybe 4-bite sized) honey sweetened corn bread muffins that were very good with salads. Buttered, and while not quite cake like, still with the honey distinguishable - l liked those too.

I like it all. Also depends on what I am eating it with.

I like fried cornbread. Albers corn meal, a little bit of salt, enough boiling water to make a paste. Make patties and fry it up in lard or bacon grease. Slather with real butter!

La’Wan’s corn muffin sounds like my favorite thing from childhood, but those were definitely muffins, a bit greasy and sweet but not cake sweet. That wasn't something we had at home, though. That was unsweetened. My mother called it cornpone, though the article says it's the opposite. Whatever. Corn dodgers, Johnny cakes, hoe cakes, corn bread, hush puppies--It's all good, but I don't like the sweet gluey kind.

I've posted this "recipe" for hoe cakes on the trail before:

Pour boiling water over coarse yellow corn meal and a little salt, and
let it soak in. Or more set it aside while you're doing a bunch of other stuff. Melt too much fat in a cast iron
pan (or shovel blade), make fat fingers of dough (or a wad in your
fist), and fry 'em up. (Some people add baking soda.) (Can also be baked in the oven if you have an oven.)

I like my cornbread a little sweet. I like cornmeal pancakes and just add some cornmeal to my pancake mix. I can not get to the link posted as my internet is too slow, so have no idea what you are talking about. I like my cornbread crumbled up and sweetened and milk poured over it, any time of day.

Sue

To tell you the truth I never knew there was such a thing as unsweetened corn bread so I guess that explains why I sometimes don't like the corn bread in restaurants. I have a sweet tooth.

In Minnesota, we ate it sweet. We also ate it as a strawberry shortcake. (By the way, baking powder biscuits were sweet too!)

i grew up in Maryland. My mother always put a little sugar in cornbread, and so do i. i live in California now, and when i order cornbread in a restaurant, it is always just a little sweet.

Am I the only person here who has never had cornbread, sweetened or not?

Not even the little blue box lily?! Wow. I can't imagine not having had it at some point. You are lucky.

My package of Jiffy Cornbread Mix that I just bought yesterday says, 0 Trans fat.

Sue

From the website, partially hydrogenated lard.

INGREDIENTS: WHEAT FLOUR, DEGERMINATED YELLOW CORN MEAL, SUGAR, ANIMAL SHORTENING (CONTAINS ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: LARD, HYDROGENATED LARD, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED LARD), CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF EACH OF THE FOLLOWING: BAKING SODA, SODIUM ACID PYROPHOSPHATE, MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE, SALT, WHEAT STARCH, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, BHT PRESERVATIVE, TOCOPHEROL PRESERVATIVE, CITRIC ACID PRESERVATIVE, BHA PRESERVATIVE, TRICALCIUM PHOSPHATE, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID, SILICON DIOXIDE.

FDA says if a product is less than half a gram per serving, manufacturers can round it down to 0. So, the label says no trans fats but it does contain less than half a gram per serving. Even a half a gram isn't good for you but neither is breathing.

Forget the FDA, moonie, it's not in the equation. Research has shown that eating any transfat can contribute to arterial plaque, a leading cause of strokes and heart attacks.

Do as you wish, but medical experts recommend it be avoided entirely. Which is why it is soon to be banned from all foods, but in a delayed way due to politics.

In the meantime, everyone can read labels and make their own decisions. It's easy enough to find substitute products that are healthier and contain no transfats. And doing so sends a message to the food manufacturers who have stubbornly decided to continue using transfat ingredients even though its use will be soon prohibited and its dangers have been clearly identified. Shame on them, as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, that's why I said "Even a half a gram isn't good for you".

And, just to clarify, my comment on breathing being bad for you was in reference to someone nearby my house burning something plastic or rubber. I just don't understand why people will burn things they shouldn't. If I can smell it and can't even see the fire, what must they be breathing?

Sorry if misunderstood, the comment seemed to be made with sarcasm. As if "so what if it's not good for you, breathing isn't either".

I grew up eating cornbread and never heard of it having sugar in it. Now I have at times had cornbread with sugar, but not by choice. No better fare if you are hungry than hot cornbread in a bowl of cold buttermilk.

Yes, I can see how it was misunderstood. My communication skills are always lacking, as well as my use of the english language. ;)

We ate a lot of cornbread during the war years. My mother was born in Arkansas by parents from Missouri and the family moved to Oklahoma when Mom was about 6 yrs old. Mother made cornbread the way her mother taught her and I think it had little to no sugar. Sometimes molasses or honey might be added for a sweetener, however, there was always jelly or jam on the table if one wanted to put some of that on the bread. I do not know how mother made the bread. I do recall that if it crumbled easily, she considered that a failure. One requirement was that it had to have fine ground cornmeal to prevent small hard pieces. Another reason to use very little sugar is that sugar was tightly rationed during the war years, and farmer's wives needed all the sugar that could muster for canning (putting food by).

HERE'S a much more accurate article regarding the origin and evolution of cornbread v. corny whitecake.

Our preferences for one or the other version is clearly based on what we are used to. But an authentic cornbread won't have sugar or wheat flour. I prefer stoneground cornmeal, which is much coarser and more flavorful.

I do like additions of jalapenos, bacon, or cheese every once in awhile. It's so good with chilli, chowders, or soups.

Thank-you! I am relieved to have this evidence that my mother's cornpone was not mislabelled. :) Also, I've had it strongly impressed upon me by others that there should also be baking soda--I've always wondered why, and never done it, just repeated it parenthetically wondering if there were some acid I didn't know about in there. Baking soda and buttermilk makes sense. That would make it rise! It wouldn't be cornpone anymore, as far as I'm concerned, but some folks like fluffy. :) It also explains why I remember cornpone in my childhood as being bitter when it was made at home (rather than camping)--it was the meal itself.

What a great article!

plllog - my mother also used the word "cornpone". I'm wondering if it's a regional thing since I rarely hear others call it that. Her family was from eastern Kentucky.

Oh, nevermind. I just now read the linked article. lol

My cornbread is not sweet but it does have 2 TBSP of sugar. Cornmeal can have a bitter taste without it. But I do love cornbread with strawberry preserves on it!

I don't think it's a racial division....I actually appreciate both (depends on what I'm eating it with).

Cornpone in MN is cornbread baked in cast iron molds the shape of corn cobs.

Same difff. We hand form it into logs. :)

I don't remember ever eating it as a child. I make it with a tablespoon of sugar and coarse yellow meal. The first sweet corn muffin I ever had was from a Kroger bakery.

Yesterday, a fella from Oklahoma made his family's cornbread and gave it to my folks. I saw it there on the counter, today, so took a bite piece that had broken off. It was definitely a more cakelike texture, and though the flavor was more salty than sweet there was a bit of sweetness. I don't know if that's the corn or actual sweetening. It was good! Not gluey like some of the cake style ones are.

Thanks a million for posting the link. I enjoyed reading it so much. Cornbread is like so many other things in cooking/baking, it's neither right or wrong (unless you're dogmatic) - but a choice. It's the same for brownies - chewy, cake-like, or something in between, it's a choice.

My Canadian-born (bush country of northern Ontario) mother never made cornbread until she discovered she had celiac disease and made 100% cornmeal cornbread made with sour cream, and no flour to lighten it, and I thought it was a wonderful recipe - so maybe there shouldn't be wheat flour in the mix, either! ;-) The only other cornbread I had to compare it to at the time was at school, and it was the sweet cake-like style. I like all of it, and have made lots of different recipes for baked corn pone and corn sticks, and cornbread, and different methods baking it over the years.

My personal experience.... Until you've made cornbread with freshly-milled cornmeal you've missed out on one of the greatest flavor experiences EVER! And it doesn't matter WHAT recipe (sweetened, or not, additional flour, or not) you use. It's one time fresh-is-best. Commercial cornmeal tastes like "road dust" compared to freshly milled cornmeal.

On the food science side - which is what I always find interesting and useful as a former Foods Judge at County and State Fairs who uses a list of standards for judging different baked goods - the finer the cornmeal is ground the more cake-like the finished bread. If you like a coarse cornbread, use a coarse-grind of cornmeal (Bob's Red Mill has coarse, medium, and fine grind). If you have your grandmother's recipe, but just can't get the recipe "right", she may have used a different grind of cornmeal. There is also a big difference between recipes depending on the ratio of cornmeal to (wheat) flour. I make a very thin gluten-free version using finely-milled cornmeal (I mill my own) and masa flour (used for making tortillas) to use as sliced sandwich squares for grilled sandwiches. If I use a coarse grind of cornmeal in this particular recipe, the cornbread falls apart. So there are any number of reasons for using different recipes and different grinds of cornmeal.

Sugar in a recipe will work as a tenderizer and will also aid in the browning. You can almost tell there's sugar in a recipe by the lightly browned crust, while the anemic-looking crust (or the crumb and crust are almost the same color) probably has no sweeteners in it, other than the "natural sugars" found in corn and (wheat) flour.