Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Mississippi Traditional Cornbread Recipe

i made your recipe the other day, was kinda stiff, bready...i can see it is an acquired appreciation taste-wise, i like the story behind it

kaywoodie,

Up in northeast Texas (where I was born & raised), HOT WATER cornbread was what most people ate with fish. - Even THE POINT, which is probably the best known catfish place "back home" still makes hot water cornbread, that was made of nothing more than cornmeal, salt & boiling water & then fried in hot grease.

Of course, we "hillbillies from way up yonder" (as a friend described NE Texans) are thought to be CRAZY anyway, since we turned a pickled/sweetened, "hot with cayenne peppers", onions & green tomatoes RELISH into a vegetable to eat with catfish, fried potatoes & cornbread.
(That "relish" is called CADDO RELISH & northeast Texas natives eat it by the bowl-full.)

Some years ago, our family entertained several officers & their wives, whom I had served with OCONUS, for several days during the Thanksgiving week. = My cousin (Robert Sterling) & I took them to one of the fish-camps out on Caddo Lake to eat catfish, where most of the "locals" order "pitch till you win" (a family-style fish dinner where the wait-staff brings out big platters of fish, potatoes, hushpuppies & pitchers of iced tea AND keeps bringing more until everyone is "foundered", including bringing a medium-sized bowl of Caddo Relish for each person.)

When the platters started arriving, everyone "tucked into" the fish & "side dishes", including the visitors all copied Robert & I, spooning considerable quantities of Caddo Relish onto their plates. - All of a sudden, the conversation STOPPED and Jack Wallace (whom I had served with for 3 years in Latin America) said, "Tex, WHAT on Earth IS this stuff? My lips and mouth are ON FIRE. HOW can you even get it down?"
(Before I could answer, Robert Sterling said, "Sorry Colonel, we all grew up eating this stuff & we think that it's good." He paused & said, "IF you think that this is HOT, do NOT even CONSIDER trying the GREEN stuff in those little bottles. - That sauce is nothing but fresh-grated green cayenne peppers & vinegar & even us 'local yokels' call it, GREEN FIRE.")

I plead "guilty as charged" for NOT warning our guests about trying to copy "our crazy local folks" & the foods that many of us grew-up eating. - I didn't even think to tell them what Caddo Relish is. = Mea Culpa.

yours, tex

All the catfish places around these parts serve hushpuppies. Little balls of cornbread with onion added, fried in grease.

JamesJr,

Speaking of "catfish places", I truly WISH that I had a recipe for the so-called "OKLAHOMA DIP" that a lot of catfish places in OK use as a batter on their fish.
(I asked for the recipe at several fish-places, before I was transferred from Ft Sill to Ft Lee & and none of the places would give me the recipe.)

IF any of our members happens to have the recipe, I would be pleased to receive it.

yours, tex

Google ?

284LUVR,

The recipe that I'm seeking is NOT on google or any other search engine that I looked on. - My laptop was the first place that I looked.
(One fish-house in OK's manager near Lawton said, when I politely told him that I was PCS-ing out of state & asked for the recipe, "We paid good money for that recipe. Why should I give it to some soldier, just because you want it?")

Fwiw, MOST food vendors will give anyone, who asks politely for their best recipes, including their "secret"recipes. = That's how that I got some of the BEST recipes from THE COURT OF TWO SISTERS & COMMANDER'S PALACE, in New Orleans.

yours, tex

I have eat fish just about everywhere I've traveled to, and much prefer the catfish that is cooked from this area and to the South. The fish is pretty much all the same, but the breading and in particular the seasoning is the difference.

By the way, though I didn't like the fish out Oklahoma way, the best steak I've had was at the Cattleman's Café in OK city.

Lots of good catfish places around here. In fact my Cousin started cooking catfish way back, in His farm shop, on Saturday nights only, Dec. through March. Got real popular and now has 500-600 people every Sat. that it is open. Been going on for 20+ years and now ran by some one else as my cousin has gotten old and ill. Breaded with cornmeal is the standard around here. Salt, pepper and paprika is what most use along with yellow corn meal. miles

Tex, we poor folk just northeast of Caddo Lake, can't afford to go to them fancy eating places. We catch our own and fry them up. Yep, eat them with hot water bread. That Caddo Relish, minus the hot pepper, is called Chowchow here.

websterparish47,

Are you from MINDEN, perhaps??

Btw, I'm from PITTSBURG, in Camp County & when we "ignorant hillbillies" talk about "going into the city", we mean SHREVEPORT (or as people of my grandfather's era called it: Shreve's Port.)
(YEP, I even know who Captain Shreve was.)

Note: Since we Northeast Texicans think of you LA folk from "just across the river" as "cousins"/"home folks", do you know what the difference in GREEN FIRE & RED FIRE is??

yours, satx

websterparish47,

Btw, my "Spokane, WA raised" lady is NOT "a happy camper" if I cook fish at home. - Darla says that "It makes the whole house STINK." = "Going to Caddo" to eat fish promotes "marital harmony".
(CHUCKLE)

Note to "foreigners", who don't have a clue about what "websterparish47" & I are talking about, when he says, "them fancy eating places", most of the "fish camps" in NE Texas LOOK like "a place you'd be afraid to slow down by", much less stop & go into to eat.

yours, satx

I always add a can of crushed pineapple, drained, and a can of or hefty handful of diced jalapenos into my cornbread. Typically just a box mix. Sweet and spicy with a little salt from the jalapenos; Turns out pretty special....

kaywoodie,

I was MOSTLY raised by my mother, 2 aunts & my Black governess, who was from central Mississippi.
(My father died young & my much loved grandfather died at 87YO, when I was nearly 14YO.)

Mother was born in 1917, one aunt in 1908 & the other in 1936. "Sister Willie Mae" was born in 1927.

NOTE: The book & movie "THE HELP" is read/reread/loved by nearly all of the Southern-born kids, who were raised (or at least MOSTLY, like me cared for & raised) by a Black woman. - The ladies "of color" loved us unconditionally & we kids unreservedly loved our governesses in return.
("Sister Willie Mae" was "MY Constantine", if you've seen the movie.)
Further, MANY of us kids who had governesses also met/played with & LOVED our governesses own children.
(Ruthie Moore-Walls grew up & played together from when we were about 5YO & stayed "best friends" until I went to UT & she went to Southern University in LA. - We are both "old folks now" but when Ruthie & I meet in NETX, the years fall away & it "gets pretty wet" for both of us, in public or not. = We STILL love each other as "near kin", though neither Dr. Walls nor my Darla understand our feelings/tears of reunion.)

ALL of the 4 ladies were young girls or young women during the Great Depression & many things that they all cooked for me as a boy/teen were "typical of that era".

My first wife used to laugh AT me when I cooked the things that I remembered from my boyhood, saying, "Honey, you don't have to add all that spaghetti, macaroni & rice to everything. It's NOT 1935 now & we can afford NOT to 'stretch' everything, because your & most any other family couldn't afford better food back then."

FULL DISCLOSURE: Vickie Kay passed away in 1983 & before she converted me to being "modern" & I STILL do the same, adding of pasta/rice to many dishes, as that practice was what I grew up eating.
(Professor Mary Parker-Bond, the famed nutritionist, calls such dishes that we ate & LOVED as children: CRADLE FOOD.
Dr. Parker-Bond says that we LOVE those things as adults because they remind us of our childhoods, home & family.

yours, tex

I don't know what to call that, and it might be good, but it ain't cornbread. miles

that made me just shudder. lol

Good gawd........

More corn bread sacrilege. I was adding Okra and canned corn and it turned out really moist. Also tried adding bacon, cheese and jalapenos to the okra corn bread. It came out good too. My Virginia relatives would make spoon bread with mostly boiling water and some buttermilk. Sounds like a baked version of the hot water corn bread.

In this part of Texas, the Hill Country, the key ingredient is bacon grease both to oil the pan and in addition to whatever oil or butter is used. Get it almost to the smoking point and pour the batter in and you will have a good bottom crust.

My in-laws were from Eudora AR. When we would go visit, it was catfish dinners after church there on Sunday. Like Miles stated, there are LOTS of good places to get catfish in the south.

Just baked me up a skillet full of cornbread. Man, I am in heaven.

Dad would sometimes crumble up cornbread into a glass of buttermilk as dessert.