1 cup corn meal

1 cup corn meal

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 or 2 eggs

3/4 cup sour milk or buttermilk

1/2 cup water

About 1 tablespoon, shortening melted in iron skillet (bacon drippings are fine)

Sift together corn meal, baking powder, soda and salt. Beat egg, add to it milk and water. Add egg mixture to dry ingredients and mix well. Pour into hot skillet containing melted shortening. Bake about 30 minutes in 400-425-degree oven. Serve inverted on a plate and cut into pie-shaped slices.

Crackling bread

3/4 cup tiny cubes of salt pork or cooked bacon

2 cups corn meal

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup buttermilk

2 tablespoons fat from salt pork or bacon

11/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon soda

1 teaspoon salt

Put cubes of salt pork in heavy frying pan and cook slowly, stirring frequently until browned. Sift together corn meal, salt, baking powder and soda. Combine beaten eggs, buttermilk and 2 tablespoons fat from salt pork or bacon. Stir liquid ingredients into corn meal. Add cracklings or bacon bits and stir until well distributed. Spread dough in greased pan and bake in 400-degree oven. Crackling-bread pones are sometimes cooked on top of the stove. Place pones on griddle with plenty of fat and cook slowly, browning on both sides.

In its simplest form, cracklin’ bread is made of cracklings, the crisp brown pieces of pork remaining after lard has been rendered, with a little salt, corn meal and enough warm water to make into pones. Another version uses buttermilk for the liquid, 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups of corn meal, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon soda and 1 cup of cracklings. Since very few cooks today have cracklings on hand, crisp bacon, crumbled, can be substituted, or the more ambitious can make cracklings by frying out finely diced salt pork. The addition of eggs, as in the following modern recipe, improves the texture of the bread.

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