Calling Hans (norgeway): Adluh Flour

norgeway · Nov 29, 2016

Re White corn meal..

It makes a much lighter bread, and tastes different too
1 cup self rising white corn meal
1 cup self rising flour
1egg
2 tbsp. oil
buttermilk to make a batter about like pancake batter
Pour in a well greased iron skillet, 425 until light brown on top.
NO SUGAR!!!!! In Southern corn bread.

supersuds · Nov 29, 2016

My father always said yellow corn was for Yankees and pigs, but I don't know the source of that particular bias. Probably just tradition.

Definitely no sugar!

luxflairguy · Nov 29, 2016

Oh! My YANKEE ears!

gyrafoam · Nov 30, 2016

John, I don't recall a reference to "Yankees" although it doesn't surprise me a bit. Such was the passion in the 1950's left-over from the Civil "wo-wah" you'd have thought it just ended the day "be-fo-ah"!

Around Atlanta it was generaly thought that White Meal, Grits,Flour were for gentrified folks. Only field hands, farm animals, and "colored" folks ate yellow grain.

I use white by habit. Have eaten cornbread made with yellow meal out West and it was delicious.

Most of our family were "Yankees" and I never knew any of them who actually liked cornbread anyway, so they didn't care one way or another. They weren't 'eatin it.

mikael3 · Nov 30, 2016

Even in Mexico, white masa is much preferred over yellow masa, so the bias is obviously widespread. I use white corn meal, but I prefer yellow corn grits. Honestly, there’s not too much difference between white and yellow, but there is a slight difference.

Even more significant in cooking quality and taste is the difference between Southern and Yankee corn: Southern corn is soft dent corn, but Yankee corn is hard flint corn. Dent corn is troublesome to grow and keep, and but it is easy to mill. Flint corn ripens quickly and stores well (for centuries, probably!!), but it requires a strong, modern mill to produce meal in bulk.

To be culinarily correct, Southern hoe cakes should be made with dent, and New England Johnny Cake should be made with flint. Rhode Islanders in particular are proud of their long heritage of producing flint meal. But in the South, flint corn has also been very common for a long time, and I sometimes wonder what is really inside commercially-produced bags. Luckily for those of us who live in the South, it’s easy to find stone-milled dent.

Anson Mills has a nice description of the two:

About Corn | Anson Mills - Artisan Mill Goods from Heirloom Grains

ansonmills.com

“Though you’d never know it today, corn has many classes of plant shape, ear shape, and, most significantly, kernel shape and hardness. There is flint corn whose kernel tops are round like kernels of popcorn (a variety of flint) and dent corn whose kernels, with a dent in the top of each, resemble candy corn. There are also lesser known mixed-class corns like flint-dent, dent-flint, etc.

“Anson Mills focuses on hard heirloom flint corns and soft heirloom dent corns of the pre-industrial era, and explores how they are transformed into heritage foods with notable flavor, texture, and aroma. By ‘hard flint’, we mean that the starch within the kernel is hard. Hard flints are tough to mill, but are also superior keepers for long-term storage. Many flint corns also ripen earlier than dents—especially those with small kernels. The enduring popularity of Jonnycake Meal, a white cornmeal made from Narragansett White Flint, speaks to a preference for flint corn in a part of the country where early maturing crops suit the region’s relatively short growing season.

“Dent corn, by contrast, has a soft starch endosperm and opaque kernels. Dents mill easily. Traditional Southern culture, with its emphasis on daily foods and handwork, chose soft dents for grits and cornmeal. Not only did the climate accommodate these late-maturing, long-season dents, but Southerners preferred the flavor of their Antebellum dents compared to the flint corn varieties that grew in their region. As a result, a certain tension has existed historically in the South between its pronounced predilection for dent corn and the undeniably appealing characteristics of early-to-ripen and easy-to-store flints. The tension increases when we begin to look closely at the connection between culture, geography, and economics of our revolutionary and Antebellum eras. From this research we have learned that most general conclusions regarding Southern heirloom corn farming and heritage foods have significant exceptions. At Anson Mills, we celebrate these exceptions and strive mightily to make them easily understood and relevant and, most important, we find amazing ‘new’ flavors and textures for all of us to enjoy.”

mikael3 · Nov 30, 2016

I also found this interesting insight into Southern cooking 100 years ago. It’s from a bulletin put out by the Department of Agriculture, published in 1915.<!-- [if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Department Bulletin

books.google.com

The whole article is interesting, but here’s the bit about cooking.



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“The consumption of corn meal is greatest in the Southern States of the Union, where in certain sections meal and grits are the principal cereal foods. Hon. E.J. Watson, commissioner of agriculture, commerce, and industries of the State of South Carolina, who has been particularly active in repressing the sale of spoiled meal in his State, is responsible for the statement that in South Carolina corn meal is not only the principal cereal product, but the most important of all articles of diet. The same statement applies to many other regions in the South, particularly the rural districts, where wheat flour is of secondary importance and in some cases even a rarity. In many southern families, even in the cities, corn meal in some form or other is eaten three times a day, and in most families at least once a day.

“Among the common corn-meal dishes eaten in the South are hoecake, a mixture of corn meal and water with or without salt, cooked in a frying pan or griddle; corn bread or pone, made with the addition of baking powder or its equivalent and baked in the oven; griddle cakes, prepared from a thin batter with the addition of a leavening agent; egg or spoon bread, differing from ordinary corn bread in that eggs are used; and corn dumplings, usually cooked with either meat or vegetables. Corn meal is used in puddings, waffles, poultry dressing, meat and fish dishes. There is also a large consumption of mush made from hominy or grits and of lye hominy prepared from the whole grain after removal of the hull with caustic soda.

“The corn and grits used in the South are prepared almost exclusively from white dent corn in both northern and southern mills. In the North, where corn products are consumed to a less degree, the preference is usually given to meal made from yellow corn, although the so-called hominy (grits) made from white corn is a common breakfast cereal. Hasty pudding (corn mush) and Johnny cake (corresponding to the hoecake of the South) have been made in New England households since colonial days. Indian pudding, a popular dessert prepared from com meal, milk, and eggs, has long been regarded as one of the necessary adjuncts to the New England Thanksgiving dinner.

“The dent varieties, both white and yellow, are generally used in the manufacture of meal and grits. A white variety known as ‘hominy corn’, extensively grown in eastern Illinois and western Indiana, is preferred by many millers. In Rhode Island white flint corn has been milled for generations to produce a kind of meal much esteemed by the residents of that State, and in some other regions flint corn is milled to a limited extent.”

mikael3 · Nov 30, 2016

Okay, I veered way off topic with those two posts. I hope that’s okay. I had forgotten this started as a post on flour, not cornmeal.

Calling Hans (norgeway): Adluh Flour

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About Corn | Anson Mills - Artisan Mill Goods from Heirloom Grains

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