Sure, we had blackeyed peas yesterday. Along with a fine coleslaw. I didn’t make mustard greens—their color supposedly guarantees a prosperous New Year, but I did toss some bright green cilantro in the slaw—I trust that’ll count.
We almost didn’t get the blackeyes—well, we almost didn’t get the blackeyes on New Year’s Eve. No way was I going without, even if I bought canned ones at the 24-hour Walgreen’s. That afternoon our cooking son and his wife invited us last minute to their house for beef tenderloin if we’d bring our own potatoes and lobster tails. Happily we complied and stopped off, at their suggestion, at Central Market, our upscale, upscale store (like Whole Foods with more cheese). Lobster tails, no problem. Baking potatoes, right there. Blackeyed peas, a problem. The produce department had a huge display of fresh hulled peas, but they were purple hulls not blackeyes. I ask an employee; she grinned. They’d run out by noon; “but these taste just like them.” Clearly, she didn’t understand blackeyes. Up in the all organic department they had some little bitty cartons—looked like about four ounces for $4. Good luck or not, I wasn’t going to spend $12 to get one good bowl of blackeyes, and since the clock was ticking toward dinner time and those potatoes had to bake, I wasn’t about the venture into the maze of aisles to look for dry ones.
We arrived, greeted, I played “Bobba” with our grandson, and Bob headed around the corner to Foodarama, a supermarket at the other end of the spectrum from Central Market where he snagged a bag of dried peas. Disaster averted. I even remembered to put them in to soak before I went to bed in the early hours of 2012.
Now, while they simmered nicely over a low gas flame and the coleslaw soaked up its tangy dressing, I got ready for our last traditional dish—the cornbread. For many years I made cornbread from scratch using my farmer Grandmother Nordyke’s recipe—only cornmeal, no sugar, lots of bacon fat, but lately I’ve gotten lazy and reached for the cornbread mix. Which I did now. Oops. No cornbread mix. No! I was not going to the store on New Year’s Day for cornbread mix; I would make it from scratch. But how? The cookbook with her recipe is back in Georgia
It worked, but the creative cook in me began the critique. Too crumbly; next time I’ll put a little flour in next time to get it to hold together, and clearly it need bacon fat. It really needs bacon fat. One thing was totally clear though—no more cornbread mix. Not that much trouble and so very, very good.
Here’s my amended recipe:
1 egg
1 cup milk (Grandmother N. would have used buttermilk)
1 tablespoon cooking oil
1 1/2 tablespoon bacon drippings
2 cups yellow cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
 |
| So good! The cast iron gives a gorgeous golden crust. |
Beat egg milk and cooking oil together, and then add the meal, baking powder and salt. Melt the drippings in an 8 inch cast iron skillet. Pour the hot grease into the batter, stir, and immediately put batter into the hot skillet (Grandmother N’s technique). Bake (check often) for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees.
Not the end of the story! Here’s the great minds part. I don’t take the daily New York Times, but I do get it online. I also get lots of notices about subjects I’m interested in—like cooking. So I sit down at the computer this morning and check out “My Alerts: recipes.” What’s there? A recipe for cornbread using only cornmeal, lots (more than I would) of bacon fat, and heating the cast iron skillet. It’s almost my recipe! It even goes on to say that if you are not using fresh rough ground cornmeal (Grandmother N. ground her own [or had one of the seven kids do it] in the barn behind the Texas
Great minds!
If you’d like to check out the NYTimes recipe, here’s the link.
