They serve period food at some Civil War re-enactments, and occasionally it will be available ...

Sheilajoyce, I haven't made it in some time, but I like it. It kind of reminds me of a cornmeal Yorkshire pudding. The recipe I used had beaten egg whites folded in at the end and then when it was baked it stayed relatively "fluffy".

Annie

It is most like a polenta or grits. No leavening. Also corn pone, Indian pone. Similar to next-day polenta that can be sliced, eaten cold, or pan seared. Sometimes called 'wet bread'. India makes a wet bread, steamed, using chickpea flour. Finished with roasted mustard seeds and sliced chili. Very savory. Jamaica has a version using coconut I think. Etc.

I grew up on the Chesapeake Bay. My grandmother brought corn pone to every holiday/Sunday meal. My grandfather, myself, my brother, ...we loved it but no-one else. Square pyrex baker room temp firm but wet. Cut into squares. Just like firm polenta. They probably had it for breakfast or lunch as porridge. Like grits, creamy polenta. Not sweet at all. Probably hundreds of versions.

Sometimes served spoonable like cream-of-wheat. Or left to rest and firm up a bit. My brother used to fry it up later. I thought that was weird. But we love Scrapple. Would never eat Scrapple 'spoonable'. And then we have pate...never fried that I know of.

That is very interesting, sleevendog. Down here corn pone is like hoecake, only thicker and with oil and sometimes buttermilk added. It's baked in pieces on a griddle or in a skillet. Pics from a PDF of Cross Creek recipes:

Link to PDF, but it doesn't have a recipe for the pone or the spoonbread:

http://harrellland.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/recipes-from-Marjorie-Kinnan-Rawlings.pdf

Just searched the NYTimes cooking. Did yours have fresh whole corn kernels? And creamy like a pudding casserole? Seems to be a popular dish around the DC area that is savory. A Corn pudding. One recipe folds in whipped egg white like mentioned. Nothing I've ever had though.

Here are the recipes from Cross Creek Cookery, courtesy of Google Books.

Pone:

Spoonbread:

And I don't know if this will work, but a link to the Hot Breads section of the book:

https://books.google.com/books?id=6RNvD5pvnvgC&pg=PA18&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

ETA Her pone recipe uses regular flour, too, although I don't think that was very common in FL at the time.

Were posting at the same time. Yes, I have researched in the past. My grandfather, (Scottish) ran a successful garment factory. My grandmother, (American Indian) ran an attached Diner. Must have been regional to the DelMarVa peninsula.

My New England mom made something like what you describe, but she called it corn pudding. These regional differences are so fascinating. Frankly, a lot of central/northern FL cuisine was driven by sheer scarcity of ingredients you couldn't grow or hunt or forage yourself--times were pretty thin up in the FL scrub for a very long time, and in this climate whole kernel corn was a once a season affair, so mostly it was dried and ground because otherwise it would ferment in the heat here.

Sheilajoyce, I don't know where you are, but the Williamsburg Inn used to make superb spoonbread. Don't know if they still serve it or not. Excellent peanut soup, too.

I love spoon bread. I used to make it all the time

Discovered it when we lived in North Carolina.

I use the recipe from the Fanny Farmer Cookbook (oddly enough). I cut the recipe in half, this makes about six servings

White corn meal makes a crusty top and soft center. Yellow corn meal gives an even texture throughout

Preheat over to 400°

Butter a casserole dish and keep it warm.

Boil two cups of water in a saucepan. When boiling, slowly add

1 cup of cornmeal

1/2 teaspoon of salt

Cook and stir for 1 minute, remove from heat and add

2 tablespoons of butter

Beat well, then beat in

4 well beaten eggs (or egg substitute - 3 tbs = 1 egg)

1 cup milk

*I add 1 tablespoon of sugar*

Pour into warmed casserole, bake for 25 minutes

My recipe is the same but calls for separating the eggs and beating the whites stiff and then folding in..Also from Fanny Farmer ( Marion Cunningham)...but i guess A different edition.

Never heard of this.

Sounds interesting... I want to try.

The only way I have made it is to separate the eggs and fold in the whipped egg whites at the end of the mix. I like it but it is kinda rich, don't make it that often.

It sounds like something one could use as a base for many things. I would think that the type and quality of the corn meal would be a huge factor. Any recommendations for good cornmeal? (I also enjoy good cornbread or muffins).

The only time I have encountered spoonbread was in 1968 at Boone Tavern at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. This is the version served then. http://www.cornbreadsuppers.com/2013/03/boone-tavern-spoon-bread-1950s-recipe.html

SUNDAY, MARCH 3, 2013

Boone Tavern Spoon Bread, the 1950s recipe

We have tried spoonbreads (soft, luscious, buttery—described by James Beard as a "heavy, dense soufflé") as Cornbread Supper mainstays before, and used great recipes, but the spoonbreads always did what spoonbreads (and soufflés) do: deflate. Through serendipity, and thanks to a Cornbread Supperian, I lucked into the old Boone Tavern(Berea College) recipe for spoonbread, and it is far less droopy. Perhaps Boone Tavern developed an approach to spoonbread that preserves all its goodness while still working for a busy restaurant. In any case, with thanks to Kentucky food and foodways author and guru John van Willigen, here's an excellent recipe for that can be doubled, tripled, and quadrupled to feed spoonbread to a crowd. It did just that on Monday, February 25, 2013.

From Richard T. Hougen. Look No Further: A cookbook of favorite recipes from Boone Tavern Hotel, Berea College, Kentucky. New York: Abingdon Press. 1955.

Southern Spoon Bread

1955

Ingredients

3 cups milk

1 1/4 cups cornmeal

3 eggs

2 tablespoons butter

1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

Procedure

1. Stir meal into rapidly boiling milk. Cook until very thick, stirring constantly, to prevent scorching.

2. Remove from fire and allow to cool. The mixture will be cold and very stiff.

3. Add well-beaten egg, salt, baking powder and melted butter. Beat with electric beater for 15 minutes. If hand beating is used break the hardened cooked meal into the beaten eggs in small amounts until all is well mixed. Then beat thoroughly for 10 minutes using a wooden spoon.

4. Pour into well-greased casserole. Bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees F. Serve from casserole by spoonfuls.

Cooking note: I quadrupled the recipe, used Sunflower Sundriesheirloom organic Hickory King cornnmeal (available at Good Foods Market), and made the cornmeal/milk mixture in a crockpot. I mixed the cold milk and cornmeal together, and set the crockpot to cook on high for four hours. I checked it after 2.75 hours, and it was adequately cooked. I let the mixture cool completely and then made the recipe as written.

Thanks for the recipe, Alice in Md. We spent the first night of our honeymoon at the college run hotel in Berea, Kentucky, over 54 years ago, so of course, I must try this recipe.I did make the Fannie Farmer recipe, and it was very good. The left over spoon bread became a good base for my breakfast-- sliced, warmed in the microwave, and topped with a poached egg.

Sheilajoyce, my husband and I are enjoying your reply because our 1968 visit to Boone Tavern was also on our honeymoon! We were living in northeastern Ohio at the time and drove through Kentucky and Tennessee for a week. Highlights were Lynchburg, Tennessee, home of Jack Daniel's, and Berea, Kentucky. Thanks for sharing your left-over idea, and congratulations on 54+ years of marriage!

Alice, I was teaching in Illinois in 1965, and my now husband had just taken a job in Ohio as an on air personality at WLW radio while he earned his MBA. I was to visit him at our Easter break, so the week before that, he called and proposed and suggested we elope that week. As a new employee, he had only one day off a week, so someone else traded him his day off so that we could have a grand 2 day honeymoon. The first day we spent in Berea, and the second day in Lexington. I had just enough saved to buy his wedding ring, and we bought our souvenier of our honeymoon at a Lexington store that was going out of business -- a cute double set of silver salt and pepper shakers that I put out on our holiday table every special occasion. They cost $10, and that was the end of my meager teacher's savings account.