Having lived in the South my entire life, cornbread is and will always be a staple in my home. I must admit that over the years, my cornbread baking has been in a very deep rut. Jeremy Jackson, the author of this book, has brought new life to my cornbread aspirations.
You just have to appreciate any cookbook someone puts so much passion into. Jeremy’s love for all things “cornbread” is prevalent on every page. He even wrote a song about cornbread. You can find it in the back of the book.
His ultimate goals in writing this cookbook also reveal his passion. Here are the four goals (along with my personal comments) Jeremy wants to achieve with this very entertaining cookbook:
- To make cornbread one word. (In the south, it is only one word.)
- To make cornbread the official bread of the United States. (What other truly American bread would you pick?)
- To find a wife. (Jeremy not to worry – I am the envy of all of my friends, because my husband can cook. He’s a chef. Women really appreciate someone else doing the cooking, especially if they do the dishes as well.)
- To expand our concept of what cornbread is, and what cornbread can do. (Jeremy’s recipes go way beyond those dried-up squares of cornbread that suck-up all of the spit out of your mouth. It just kills me to think that this is all most people know about cornbread.)
After the first few interesting chapters about the history of cornbread, and what ingredients and equipment you need, you’ll get to the recipes. The Basic Cornbread chapter is where to find the standard, but very tasty, cornbread recipes. His cornbread recipe of choice is the one for Sweet Cornbread. In the Beyond Basic chapter, you’ll find such recipes as Golden Nugget Popovers, Cornmeal Waffles, Griddlecakes, Velvet Spoonbread and Uppity Cornmeal Crepes. The Sweet Cornbread chapter is the place to find desserts made with cornbread, cornmeal and cornflour. Some of those recipes are: Apple Skillet Flipcake, Black Mountain Sorghum Cake, Berry Patch Cobbler, Sweet Potato Cupcakes, Caramel Corncake and Indian Pudding. The last two chapters have recipes for cornbreads made with yeast and what to do with leftover cornbread.
Jeremy Jackson’s The Cornbread Book is perfect for every level baker. I know you’ll enjoy it as much as I have.
