Southern Bread Traditions
Cornbread is eaten with vegetables, soup, or milk but never with meat. It can also be enjoyed with butter and sorghum. If you're eating at home it's ok to crumble cornbread in your soup or in your buttermilk. It's also permissible to crumble it into your pot liquor ( juice from your greens ).
Biscuits are consumed with mashed potatoes, rice and gravy, grits or with a meat. Leftover biscuits are enjoyed with butter, syrup, preserves or honey. Biscuits should never be served with vegetables - that's why cornbread was invented.
Spoon bread is considered a dish unto itself.
White loaf bread is generally served with BBQ and at fish fries when grits are available.
Hush puppies are paired with seafood and sometimes with BBQ, hash or Brunswick Stew.
A complete southern meal will feature both cornbread and biscuits. My mother baked a cake of cornbread every day of her life and always made scratch biscuits on Sunday.
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22 Comments:
A followup question re: spoonbread. To be eaten with or without sugar?
My family and I have always eaten it sweet (we are from Virginia, in case this turns into a regional thing), but I have known people who prefer it saltier or with bits of country ham baked it.
cdp1223 at 3:52PM on 04/13/09
Why so strict?
I've seen lots of places serve cornbread with meat based chili.
bleuberry at 6:09PM on 04/13/09
my ex mil (so southern she was related to herself) used to serve cornbread with meat all the time, hushpuppies were for BBQ and anytime you were frying something, ie fish, french fries, or that annoying cousin with the tail. and white loaf bread was for every meal, biscuits were the canned variety and only for breakfast.
huneybumper at 6:54PM on 04/13/09
re: the meat--I like cornbread and have been occasionally annoyed because restaurants only serve it with meat-based things, unless the meat/cornbread/chili thing is more tex-mex than Southern.
HeartofGlass at 7:11PM on 04/13/09
@huneybumper- ex mil was related to herself, I'm still chuckling.
dmcavanagh at 7:44PM on 04/13/09
I grew up eating cornbread with almost any meal and prefer the sweet version, especially crumbled into milk. Hushpuppies were made at a fish fry, there was always white bread and butter on the table.
@cdp - spoonbread was always cheesy!
TaraTot at 7:44PM on 04/13/09
I have had cornbread in the south with meat. Chili, BBQ and chicken.
Hush puppies are cornmeal. Never post never because it is a personal taste thing. I guess all the steel magnolias is my husband's family from Alabama need some retraining, I think you should tell them and let them eat your ass and not mine.
JerzeeTomato at 8:40PM on 04/13/09
i served cornbread with my ham on easter. and it was delicious. i am from new england so i plead ignorance!
megannesta at 8:59PM on 04/13/09
Thanks to the beans cornbread does work with chili. I actually prefer saltines with my chili and sweet pickles on the side.
Hushpuppies contain flour and sugar but the old fashioned purist cornbread contains only stone ground cornmeal, baking powder, cooking oil ( butter or shortening ), salt and buttermilk. Whole or soured milk is also a good substitute for buttermilk.
Spoon bread is a true delicacy. It can stand on it's own merits and doesn't require an accompaniment other than butter. It's called spoon bread as it can be easier to eat with a spoon. No doubt it would be terrific with sorghum but most versions contain no sugar. With all those eggs it's almost a casserole.
I've lived in Alabama and never once encountered cornbread served with chicken. That would be a true abomination perpetrated only by some unknowing carpetbagger.
Poultrygeist at 7:46AM on 04/14/09
Here we go back to taste, again. I never eat anything sweet with chili to me that is an abomination. My hush puppies are not sweet they have onion in them and sweet cornbread or sweet hush puppies are northern in style.
My MIL is not a carpetbagger and her family came to AL in the 1700's so you can hush up bout that.
Your tastes are yours. Not everyone is every going to agree with them and when we speak we say I like it, I make it, I serve it...
I personally take offense to anyone throwing out the north/south, yankee, carpetbagger crap.
I am calling bullshit on that. You are dissmissed.
JerzeeTomato at 8:38AM on 04/14/09
Not everyone puts beans in their chili either. So there goes that one.
JerzeeTomato at 8:44AM on 04/14/09
@Poultry... did this post just pop up from somewhere randomly? You arent exactly giving any lead ins to your expertise on cornmeal and cornmeal based products other than it being well...weird.
I personally will eat cornbread, preferably filled with sharp cheddar and jalapenos with pretty much anything I damn well please. Im okay if I never eat a biscuit in my entire adult life and the thought of pouring sorghum on anything makes me want to wretch.
Both of my aunts have lived in the deep south for almost 30 years. Im fairly certain I have had hushpuppies with fried chicken a time or two and I would slap someone into a parallel universe if I was ever given a loaf of white bread with anything.
ChelleyD01 at 9:52AM on 04/14/09
I love cornbread and eat it with whatever I please. Life's too short and food's too good to follow such strict prescriptions.
Adam Kuban at 11:47AM on 04/14/09
@ Adam....amen.
ChelleyD01 at 11:50AM on 04/14/09
My family is from Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. I'd say that every bone in my body is southern -- no carpetbaggers here. I never heard of the no cornbread with meat rule. A typical meal at my grandparents' (including breakfast) would include at least one meat and often two; at least 3 vegetables; biscuits AND cornbread. Cornbread (including hushpuppies) is never sweet and contains no flour -- only cornmeal. This, of course, is how I was raised. I would never criticise someone else's taste or opinions. But if you come to my house and cornbread is on the menu, it will not be sweet and will not be dependent on whether there is also meat on the table. On the other hand, I have deviated from my grandmother's recipe by experimenting with whole wheat biscuits.
papillon at 12:06PM on 04/14/09
Thank you, Jerzee, Chelley, and Adam.
@Poultry, I take offense to anyone calling someone else's food preferences an abomination. You like what you like and that's fine. Someone else's tastes can be completely different. And that's fine, too.
As far as slamming people's heritage (Carpetbagger? Who cares?), that's just rude and obnoxious. I come here to talk with a wide variety of people about what they like and what they eat, so I can learn about the interesting differences. Someone who sets themselves up as an expert and proclaims that what everyone else likes is wrong doesn't have a whole lot of credibility, as far as I'm concerned. Anyone who's been around food long enough knows that there are infinite variations based on region, family, and personal taste. If you don't recognize that, there's not much left to talk about.
dbcurrie at 12:36PM on 04/14/09
I'm a grownup and if I want to eat cornbread with sushi, or biscuits with palak paneer, I will!
KateRuby at 1:43PM on 04/14/09
Now THIS is what I'm talking about. Everybody in the ring. Nothing but fists and fur!! Woo Hoo!!
izatryt at 4:22PM on 04/14/09
hee hee. i've been called a wallflower before and a host of other things. but never a carpetbagger.
dearrie at 5:44PM on 04/14/09
Nothing wrong with vodka and coke either but it's doesn't have much tradition at the bars I've been too.
Poultrygeist at 6:53PM on 04/14/09
@poultry....again, whats the basis on posting this thread? There is no lead-in other than you touting your "expertise" on southern carbs.
Vodka and coke sounds about as delicious as smearing things with sorghum. Moving on...
ChelleyD01 at 6:59PM on 04/14/09
I am labeling this off topic. Since it seems to be lacking one. Here is an SE tradition if there ever was. Shove a biscuit in it's craw and chew. This topic is done.
JerzeeTomato at 7:21PM on 04/14/09