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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

Having just got up from a homestead supper (roasted rooster, spinach, snap 
peas, Jersey milk, and ... of course .... glorious cornbread ... all from the 
homestead), I wanted to comment on the idea of recipes for corn bread.  

As the Sade song said, I'd look on them as "no place to be ending, but some 
place to start... ..... it's a smooth bowl of batter ......smooooooth bowl of 
batter...."  Or was it "smooth apple butter ...."  gotta pay more attention 
to 
those lyrics.

Anyway, cornmeal is a dynamic foodstuff.  The best real living cornmeal will 
vary greatly in its moisture content, fineness of grind, starch to protein 
ration, and a lot of other things.  How much stuff you put in it will vary.  
Better, says I, is to develop a 'batter sense'.  How does the spoon feel when 
you 
are stirring it?  How does it fall from the spoon?   If it glops off like wet 
sand, it is too dry.  If it pours in a continuous stream from the spoon, it 
is 
too wet.

Have established in your mind how that cone of salt in your palm affects that 
quantity of meal, how an egg affects the bread (usually makes it rise more), 
how the bread is affected by the heat and quantity of the oil or fat.  For 
example, most recipes I've seen call for way too much baking soda.  1/8th of 
a 
teaspoon will raise a huge pone if the proper acid is used with it.  The acid 
in 
our case is almost always buttermilk.

I suppose that my comments are less germane with commercial meal over which a 
great deal of bother has been expended to make them consistent.  But they 
still apply to an extent.   </HTML>