No self-respecting Southerner with genuine roots in Southern soil would ever drop sugar into a bowl of cornbread batter. That's a blanket statement, but one you'll definitely hear in traditional Deep South communities. When it comes to original cornbread recipes, no evidence exists of sugar being included in early American life. In fact, the Ocala StarBanner notes that cornbread likely predated the arrival of European settlers in America, with American Indians passing on knowledge of how to dry and grind corn into cornmeal for making bread, adding only salt and water. However, Southern Living (SL) does peel back the sugar curtain a teensy bit. Calling the sweet-or-not cornbread controversy a screaming-hot daily topic among Southern Living staff members, including the SL Test Kitchen, the publication reluctantly admitted after a Facebook Face-off between readers that a smidgen of sugar just might be okay.
On the other side of the cornbread chasm, Northern versions almost always contain sugar. Crescent Dragonwagon, Vermont author of "The Cornbread Gospels," calls Northern cornbread cake-like, light, and sweetened with sugar, molasses, or even maple syrup, notes Chef's Corner Store. It also bypasses the traditional cast iron skillet and has a higher percentage of flour to corn meal, Dragonwagon tells the Gainesville Times. As for her take on which is the "real" cornbread? Neither, she says. Since baking soda and baking powder weren't available until the 1700s, the earliest traditional cornbread would have been more like a corn tortilla and made without sugar.
The Ingredient Traditional Cornbread Never Uses - Tasting Table
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