Laurel's Kitchen: Tennessee Corn Pone Recipe

My friend Beth has leant me (almost on permanent loan) two very wonderful cookbooks by Laurel Robertson: Laurel's Kitchen and Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. Maybe on another post I can tell why I like them so much (even though we aren't vegetarians) and why I have been so reluctant to return them (I've recently decided I just have to get copies for myself), but for now I'm going to post Laurel's recipe for Tennessee Corn Pone since Beth posted about it here but didn't have her book to type up the recipe!

Tennessee Corn Pone

A homesick friend from Knoxville described a dish his grandma used to make. After several false starts, we came up with this - a dead ringer, he says, and certainly one of his favorites. (This is Amber talking, not Laurel -- I'll have to tell you where the phrase dead ringer comes from in another post, but this is one of the reasons I like Laurel, people just came into her kitchen and she cooked for them. She got to know them through food.)

4 cups very juicy cooked and seasoned beans (especially pinto or kidney)
2 cups cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 quart of buttermilk
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/4 margarine

Heat beans until quite hot and pour into a lightly greased 9" x 13" baking dish. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Mix the cornmeal, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Melt the margarine and combine with buttermilk and eggs. Stir the wet and dry ingredients together until smooth and pour them over the hot beans. Bake on the top rack of your oven until bread is a rich golden color and the sides of the corn bread pull away from the sides of the pan. This takes about 30 minutes. Serves 10 to 12.

Laurel says this about beans:

Even if you weren't interested in cooking them, you'd probably like to have several jars of beans around for decorative value alone. Their rich, earthen colors are a feast for the eye. Our Red Bean Mix is designed to maximize nutritional value, but its appearance would delight the most exacting artist. It may be because during the Depression people could afford nothing else, but a good many people have a mental block against beans. We did at first, but it quickly gave way with a little experimentation.

She goes on to talk about how to cook them and even about flatulence when we aren't used to eating them. In one place of Laurel's kitchen she even talks about eating beans for breakfast!

Turn Dreary, Dull Tasks into Pleasures

(slightly edited from my very first blog)

Ok, so I really don't like to clean the kitchen. Rather, once I get started I can dig right in and love the satisfaction of a clean counter, but it's the getting started that I have a problem with! It's been that way since I 'gained' responsibility for cleaning the kitchen when my Mom went back to college. Piles of dishes and greasy pots and pans left till the next day (and sometimes even the day after), no dishwasher, bowls of scraps for the dogs, YUCK!!

Those jobs were overwhelming, and I dreaded and procrastinated to the very last moment- it just wasn't any fun. Growing up I used to contrast our cluttered and serially messy kitchen to my Nannie J’s spotless, glowing kitchen. It positively sparkled. But when we ate dinner there it was a hurry up and come to the table, finish your last bite, and whisk away the plates to be washed kind of experience. There was no lingering at the table and the dishes absolutely could not wait. That really wasn't very pleasant either. It was clean, but left something to be desired and I understand why Mom left that way of cleaning the kitchen behind.

When I came to college and moved to Charlotte I ate at least once a week with my other grandmother, Nannie D who I only saw several times a year as a child. At the time my Mamaw was also still living. We had wonderful dinners. (This is lunch for most all of you, – we have supper while you are having dinner.) Conversation at the table lingered, the table was cleaned off so your eye and stomach can rest, and then the conversation usually moved into the living room before any attention is given to cleaning the kitchen – the dishes can most certainly wait! They are attended to, normally with everyone pitching in together sorting, washing, rinsing, putting away leftovers (which is another difference - Nannie J throws away a lot of food while Nannie D saves even the tiniest portion) and wiping down the counters. Conversation and laughter continue the whole time. I remember a couple of days when we were all laughing so hard that we began laughing at each other laughing and just had to go sit down for a bit until we could make another attempt.

I have been reflecting on these two different styles of homemaking recently after reading parts of the book Home Comfort by Cheryl Mendelson that I found out about on Kelly's blog. Mendelson begins the book by talking about the different housekeeping styles of her grandmothers, and how she has selected from each of their styles to create her own. These thoughts about homes and houses and housekeeping have been playing in the back of my mind for weeks because I've been reading Home Comfort, House Thinking, The Not So Big House books, and Wind in the Willows. Then I ran out of dish detergent. I know that sentence is a jolt, but I found myself in the detergent aisle picking up yet another bottle of Dawn because it get's the job done, is 'tough on grease', etc. It's what Mom used, it's what Nannie J used, and it is attached to the 'Ugh' memories of dishwashing for me.

Then, with all of those housekeeping ideas in the back of my mind I had a sudden inspiration to pick up a bottle of Palmolive instead - you guessed it, it's what Nannie D uses in her kitchen. I came home, ran a wonderfully scented sink full of hot, sudsy water and washed away. The smell even triggered a memory of Nannie D teaching me how to wash the dishes - what things to wash first and how to fill the dish drainer. All week I've smelled and smiled my way to a cleaner kitchen, and I'm seriously thinking about getting a dish drainer!