[2] …the New England Open House Cookbook by Sarah Leah Chase.

[3] Today cornbread is most often cooked in a rectangular pan, like this recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction.

Serve this skillet cornbread for breakfast with eggs.

Or serve it for lunch with a bowl of hearty soup and/or a salad.

The recipe is from the New England Open House Cookbook via Vermont Creamery, which used its exquisite cultured butter and crème fraîche. Chopped scallions create a piquant counterpoint to the rich dairy.

The garnish is optional, but adds excitement to an already yummy dish. Crème fraîche or sour cream, plus fresh chopped scallions, are a delightful finish.

We have three more cornbread recipes for your perusal:

 
National Cornbread Day is April 6th.
 
 
RECIPE: SKILLET CORNBREAD

Ingredients

 
For The Garnish

 
Preparation

1. PREHEAT the oven to 375°F. Mix together the cornmeal, flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda in a large bowl.

2. WHISK together in another bowl the milk, buttermilk and eggs. Pour in the melted butter and stir well. Add these wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir till combined. Gently fold in the corn kernels.

3. POUR into the prepared cast iron skillet. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until done.

4. TO SERVE: Top with crème fraîche and a sprinkle of scallions.
 
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*To make buttermilk, just add a tablespoon of distilled white vinegar to a cup measure and add enough milk to make an even cup. Let stand five minutes.

Corn, which originated in what today is Mexico, was turned into flatbread–the tortilla—in its native land. Leavened breads were not indigenous, and the concept of raised bread wasn’t known until the arrival of the Spanish.

As corn spread from Mexico northward, it was cultivated by Native Americans across the southern region of what is now the United States. When European settlers arrived, they learned to cultivate and cook corn from the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek.

The North American natives had also learned to make another unleavened cornbread, in the form of flat oval cakes or loaves. Mixing cornmeal and water, they cooked the batter in hot ashes.

The Europeans called it cornpone, or pone. Pone is a shortened version of the Virginia Algonquian word for bread, appone; although pone is fried cooked gruel rather than flatbread (the fine points can be argued, but not here and now).

The immigrant Europeans added some salt and fried the mixture in lard in their skillets. Skillet breads, pies, etc. date back generations before people had home ovens, much less baking pans. Everything was cooked over a fire in a cast iron pot or a skillet; or in some towns, in a central community oven.

In parts of England, hoe was a colloquial term for griddle. The tale that hoe cakes were cooked by field workers on their hoes over a fire is a story perpetuated but not substantiated.

The fried corn batter is also known as hoe cakes and johnnycakes. Today, outside the South, we call them corn pancakes.

Here’s a recipe for hoecakes and for johnnycakes; the photos are below.
 
Johnnycake is similar, The modern johnnycake is found in the cuisine of New England, A modern johnnycake is fried cornmeal gruel, which is made from yellow or white cornmeal mixed with salt and hot water or milk, and sometimes sweetened

The immigrants adapted cornmeal to their European recipes: bread loaves and muffins, corncakes, fritters, hoecakes and pancakes, liquor, porridge and so on. Most people had little cooking equipment. The skillet served multiple purposes, from frying to baking.

Cornbread became popular as the main ingredient for a dressing or stuffing with fowl (the difference: stuffing is cooked inside the bird; dressing is cooked in a separate pan).
 
What Is Cornmeal?

Cornmeal is produced by grinding dried raw corn grains. The finest grind is used for baking, a medium grind for porridge and polenta, and a coarse grind for grits. Raw corn kernels spoked in hot water and an alkaline mineral like calcium hydroxide is called hominy (pozole in Spanish) and ground and mixed into masa harina, the dough used to make tamales and tortillas.

Cornbread can be baked or fried, even steamed. Steamed cornbread is more like cornmeal pudding or mush, moist and chewier than a traditional bread. Here’s more on the evolution of cornbread plus early cornbread recipes.

One thing to note: Originally cornbread did not contain sugar. As disposable income increased, this expensive ingredient was added as a variation, to make cornbread more like a cake.

Unfortunately, more and more sugar was added until cornbread became an overly-sweet, simple bread. That’s fine if you want cake; you can serve sweet cornbread with berries and whipped cream.

But if it’s bread you want, lose the sugar. We prefer to add whole corn kernels for sweetness, or enjoy cornbread as a savory bread.
 
 
CRÈME FRAÎCHE, MASCARPONE OR SOUR CREAM?

When should you use which? Here are the differences.

Here are the differences.

[5] Johnnycakes come in different shapes—flatter, plumper, individual or the size of an entire skillet. Here’s the recipe for these pancake-syle johnnycakes from About.SouthernFood.com.

[6] Who would have imagined that the wisp at the left evolved into the plump ear of corn we know today? Here’s the whole story.

CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM.

Need a bunch of small, affordable holiday gift for teachers, salon staff, the letter carrier and others you’d like to thank?

Or do you need a stash of $10 gifts for anytime gifting?

Give a box of Merci Chocolates. The very name of the product says “thank you” in French.

The miniature bars, in an assortment of flavors* made with fine ingredients, nicely packaged in a gift box. There’s even a holiday-edition gift box printed with a red ribbon and evergreen branches—no additional gift wrap required.

The delicious selection of rich European-style chocolates in multiple flavors* will delight the palate.
Choices include:

 
The 20-piece box, with 8.8-ounces of chocolate, can be found for $7.50 to $10.00 or so, depending on the retailer. You can purchase two boxes with free shipping for $21.90 on Amazon.

In addition to Amazon, the chocolates are sold at CVS, Target, Walgreens and other chains and grocery stores nationwide.
 
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[1] You can serve Merci from the box or in your favorite candy dish. [2] The holiday-edition box (photo courtesy Target).

When you hear “Christmas ice cream,” you probably think of candy cane (a.k.a. peppermint stick) ice cream.

We love it and gobble it up over the holiday season. But not everyone is a mint fan.

So here’s the easiest way ever to serve Christmas ice cream:

Sprinkle colored sanding sugar over the top.

Sanding sugar, also called colored sugar, decorating sugar, nibbed sugar, pearl sugar or sugar nibs, is coarse granulated sugar.

It’s processed to have larger granules that sparkle, and is used to decorate candies, cookies, cupcakes, sweet breads and other baked goods. You can find it in white as well as a rainbow of colors.
 
SPRINKLE YOUR HOLIDAY COLORS

For Christmas, sprinkle red and green sugars on ice cream.

For Chanukah, get blue and white sugars.

For Kwanzaa, get black, red and green.

For New Year’s Eve: gold and silver.

You can find sanding sugar in some supermarkets, baking supply stores and online sites like TheBakersKitchen.net. Here’s their selection of colored sugars.

CHECK OUT THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF SUGAR IN OUR SUGAR & SYRUP GLOSSARY.
 
  

Recently, we went to our neighborhood specialty food store to buy appetizers for a get together with wine.

Sure, the cheeses we picked were $25 a pound; our favorite crackers from La Panzanella and Raincoast Crisps aren’t inexpensive. And we do tend to buy too much.

But when the cashier said, “$146.76 please,” we were floored.

For this weekend’s entertaining, we took a car service to ALDI (we live in Manhattan, where most people don’t own cars). We paid $70 for a the same amount of food; so even with transportation we came out ahead. (And this group of friends doesn’t care about the difference between Fiscalini Bandage-Wrapped Cheddar and Cabot (our everyday brand).

If you’re inviting friends and family, ALDI is the place to save big bucks on quality foods.

From cheese and charcuterie to chocolate and desserts to an entire cooked ham, turkey or roast beef dinner: Everything is delicious.

 
All are carefully curated and are backed by a double guarantee. If you’re not 100% satisfied, bring it back for a refund and a replacement product.
 
ABOUT ALDI

ALDI launched in 1961 in Germany, the world’s first first discounter. In 1976 they opened a U.S. store in Iowa, and how have more than 1,500 stores in 34 states, expanding to 2,000 stores by 2018. Worldwide, there are some 10,000 stores in 18 countries.

Forbes Magazine calls ALDI “A Growing Menace To America’s Grocery Retailers.” The store is family-owned, and also owns Trader Joe’s.

Everyone loves the low, low prices, which Aldi achieves through a no-frills approach to food retailing:

 
There is no e-commerce, but you can visit the company website, get the lay of the land and use the store locator to find the ALDI nearest to you.
 
 
What Does ALDI Mean?

The discount food business was founded by the two Albrecht brothers. The name is an acronym for (AL)brecht and (DI)scounter.

[1] Want an entire catered dinner? You’ll save a lot getting it at ALDI (photo courtesy ALDI). [2] From cheese and charcuterie to other nibbles, you’ll find what you need at ALDI (photo courtesy Cupcakes And Cutlery). [3] For dessert, there’s everything from the classics to the seasonal, like these mini linzer tarts (photo courtesy Aldi).

What to get for the fine food lover who doesn’t cook?

As long as someone has an oven and knows how to turn it on, we suggest a gift of Babeth’s Feast.

There are more than 300 dishes, flash frozen, that heat up as if they were just prepared fresh. People in France regularly entertain this way: buy the main meal and make a salad. That’s why Babeth, who had moved to New York, brought the concept to the U.S.

Foods can be sent anywhere. There are options for breakfast, brunch, lunch, and everything from haute cuisine to burgers and simpler meals.

But what we love is the opportunity to have an elegant dinner at home, as is Babeth’s custom. Buy the main dinner—fine hors d’oeuvres and a four-course dinner—soup, fish course, meat course with sides and dessert.

All you do is make a fresh salad and provide the wine and after-dinner coffee.

The entire NIBBLE team was treated to a dinner this past summer, and we still haven’t stopped talking about it.

Here’s the company website where you get the party started.