Regional Cornbread Varieties

I was raised on my Grandma's home-style, deep-Alabama cornbread: a dense, heavy, bright-yellow bread that was salty and often contained peppers, lard or cracklins. I had no idea until adulthood that this form of cornbread was different than the form eaten in the Midwest and Northeast. Cornbread is as regionally varied as any food can be, and seems to act as a signature for the region itself.

After living in many different parts of the country over the course of several years, and sampling these cornmeal-based breads made by many chefs, I noticed strong, regionalized patterns in the types of cornbread eaten in each part of the country.

Heavy Southern Cornbread

The "countriest" of deep-South cornbreads, this variety is the name I use for the cornbread varieties I grew up eating. These are very dense and made nearly entirely of yellow corn meal, with large amounts of salt, buttermilk, egg, and, sometimes, cracklins. The dense dough is then baked in a skillet lined with bacon drippings, Crisco, or lard, and the resulting cornbread is extremely rich and calorie-intensive-- true, perhaps, to Southern tradition.

Light Southern Cornbread

My grandmother's lighter cornbread contained a token amount of wheat flour to make the texture of the bread a little lighter. It would sometimes contain slightly less butter or lard than the heavier cornbread recipes, and would use more buttermilk. Sometimes the dough would be whipped prior to baking, giving the cornbread a slightly airier texture. This recipe was still much more dense than the varieties eaten in other regions of the U.S.

Southwestern Cornbread

In Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, many restaurants and cooks serve a dish very similar to Southern Cornbread, but with the addition of cheese and peppers. Often, the cheese of choice is a jack or cheddar cheese (or a combination of the two). The peppers used are usually spicy or flavorful, like jalepenos or pimentos. The cornbread native to these regions has a sharper, tangier flavor and a melty texture compared to Southern cornbread.

Midwestern Cornbread

My first introduction to Midwestern cornbread was in the predominantly Mennonite regions of rural Missouri, where the Mennonite communities popularized a form of cornbread that seemed to be a cross between Southern and Northern traditional recipes. This variety uses a two-to-one ratio of corn meal and flour, giving it a light, airier texture than some other varieties. It is sweetened lightly with mollasses or sorghum syrup, salted, and served with light cheeses. Both yellow and white corn meal are used for this variety.

Northern Cornbread

In the Northeast, the cornbread most commonly consumed is more like what we Southerners calla "Johnny Cake". It uses a fifty-fifty ratio of white flour and cornmeal and is generally quite sweet compared to its Southern, Southwestern, and Midwestern counterparts. It contains baking soda or yeast to make it much fluffier and more cake-like by comparison, and lacks the density and saltiness of other varieties.

Pacific Cornbread

Perhaps the furthest from what I grew up calling "cornbread", cornbread unique to the California coast is the fluffiest and most cake-like variety of the food, and contains only a small amount of cornmeal, which is usually white. Californian cornbread is sweetened with white sugar and often topped with honey, and uses baking sodas, eggs, and yeast to create an airy texture similar to a light cake.

Much can be said about a region by the type of foods that are consumed there, and the regionally varied definition of cornbread is an especially interesting illustration of this cultural phenomenon. The values and norms of any portion of the U.S. can be defined by examining the cornbread variety made popular there: salt and fat in the South, cheese and peppers in the West, and sugar and flour in the North. Expirimentation with these many varieties can yield a tasty treat that is perfect for your own family's preferences.