I grew up eating cornbread at least once a week.

That would be six times a week fewer than my grandmother made cornbread for my father’s family. The drill back then was biscuits for breakfast and cornbread for lunch, every day. With plenty of pinto beans, turnip greens, and cold buttermilk to go along with it. And don’t forget the big slice of raw onion on the side.

Cornbread has taken a beating since those days. Corn is genetically tweaked and grown on depleted, chemically-fertilized, herbicided, pesticided soil.

It has depressed me to look at corn, cornmeal, and yes, cornbread, despite its having been a staple of my ancestors’ diets for several generations.

Since the Ko-Mo came into my life, my relationship with corn, particularly cornbread, is undergoing a renaissance.

IMG_6823_2This is “dent” corn. Most of the corn grown is dent corn. It’s also known as field corn. It may be easier to say what it is not–it isn’t sweet corn or popcorn. This is the kind of corn used to make cornmeal, and the only kind you can grind in most mills. I got this in bulk from Azure Farms. Since it’s organic, you also know it’s non-GMO.

I put it in the hopper of the Ko-Mo:

IMG_6819_2And put on the lid. Wow, pretty wood.

I need to stop trying to wear nail polish.

IMG_6820_2Then watch the meal emerge, adjusting the fineness of the grind as it grinds.

IMG_6821_2

I make cornbread without a recipe, a little of this, a little of that. Eggs, milk or buttermilk, salt, baking powder, a little baking soda, sometimes a little onion or sage.

IMG_6828Put an iron skillet in the oven, melt up a little butter or heat up a little olive oil . . .

IMG_6829Swirl the butter around to coat the pan, pour the excess into the batter and stir it up, then pour the batter into the sizzling pan.

IMG_6832The edges are already starting to crisp.

IMG_6834Pure, simple cornbread.

IMG_6836_2My husband’s grandmother crumbled the leftover cornbread from lunch into a glass of buttermilk every evening for a nightly snack.

It sounds weird to most people, especially my kids, who start saying things like “that would be the grossest thing for anybody to do,” and “that is disgusting,” but I know they don’t know what’s good.

Kids never do.