Cornbread

Cornbread is a generic name for any number of quick breads containing cornmeal. They are usually leavened by baking powder.

History

Native Americans were using ground corn (maize) for food thousands of years before European explorers arrived in the New World.

European settlers, especially those who resided in the English Southern Colonies, learned the original recipes and processes for corn dishes from the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek, and soon they devised recipes for using cornmeal in breads similar to those made of grains available in Europe. Cornbread has been called a "cornerstone" of the Cuisine of the Southern United States. Cornmeal is produced by grinding dry raw corn grains. A coarser meal (compare flour) made from corn is grits. Grits are produced by soaking raw corn grains in hot water containing calcium hydroxide (the alkaline salt), which loosens the grain hulls (bran) and increases the nutritional value of the product (by increasing available niacin and available amino acids). These are separated by washing and flotation in water, and the now softened slightly swelled grains are called hominy. Hominy, posole in Spanish, also is ground into masa harina for tamales and tortillas. This ancient Native American technology has been named nixtamalization. Besides cornbread, Native Americans used corn to make numerous other dishes from the familiar hominy grits to alcoholic beverages (such as Andean chicha). Cornbread was popular during the American Civil War because it was very cheap and could be made in many different forms—high-rising, fluffy loaves or simply fried (as unleavened pone, corn fritters, hoecakes, etc.)

Cornbread (disambiguation)

Cornbread is a generic name for any number of quick breads (a bread leavened chemically, rather than by yeast) containing cornmeal.

It may also refer to:

See also

Cornbread (graffiti artist)

Darryl McCray, known by his tagging name, “Cornbread,” is a graffiti artist from Philadelphia, credited with being the first modern graffiti artist. Darryl McCray was born in North Philadelphia in 1953 and raised in Brewerytown, a neighborhood of North Philadelphia. During the late 1960s, he and a group of friends started "tagging" Philadelphia, by writing their nicknames on walls across the city. The movement spread to New York and blossomed into the modern graffiti movement, which reached its peak in the U.S. in the 1980s and then spread to Europe. Since his tagging days, McCray has developed a close relationship with The Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. He is a public speaker and a youth advocate.

Childhood and Corrections Facility

Born in Brewerytown in 1953, Darryl McCray was primarily raised by his mother and grandparents. In 1965, McCray was sent to a juvenile corrections facility called the Youth Development Center (YDC). While at the YDC, McCray adopted the nickname “Cornbread.” McCray complained to the cook of the institution, Mr. Swanson, that he only baked white bread, while McCray preferred his grandmother's cornbread. McCray’s constant badgering inspired Mr. Swanson to start calling McCray “Cornbread,” a nickname that McCray adopted. The YDC was full of Philadelphia gang members who would write their names on the walls of the facility. McCray was never part of a gang, but he would write his new nickname, “Cornbread,” on the walls next to the gang members. He was the first person to tag his own name and not a gang name or symbol.