Where has our cornbread gone?

That old Caymanian favorite has vanished from restaurant tables and takeaway plates. Not so long ago, a Caymanian meal always included some kind of cornbread, either pan style or custard top cornbread, that unique Caymanian creation which is served cold and considered a side dish, not dessert. Not anymore.

What happened?

Cornbread is easy and economical to make. For the price of a latte and giant muffin you can make a pan of cornbread big enough to feed a family.

Have we lost that simple old recipe or just gotten lazy?

Or has humble cornbread become too common, replaced by a taste for artisan breads and crusty foreign rolls?

Will future generations of Caymanians grow up never tasting warm sweet Caymanian cornbread made from Grandma’s special recipe?

I’m here this week to make sure that doesn’t happen.

I have often wondered why corn, or more accurately, maize, played such an insignificant role in our culinary heritage. Cayman is so close to Mexico, where modern corn was born, and these Islands are part of a region where maize was once worshiped as a gift from the gods.  For the Aztec, Maya and other early indigenous peoples, maize was both a sacred gift and staple food.  It remains an important crop today. The corn tortillas and tamale dough of Mexico, Honduras and other Central American cultures –and our cornbread too—are modern forms of an ancient food.

However, there is only a brief mention of corn in Cayman’s history text, Founded Upon the Seas (Chapter 10, “Livelihoods and Lifestyles Before 1914”) which groups it with other crops grown as “ground provisions” by early 20th century families. It also says that grinding cassava and corn were common household chores for children.

But there is no mention of cornmeal or cornbread there or in The National Archive’s data base, which has only a few very brief references to corn in transcripts from interviews in its Oral History Programme. One said that years ago it was brought from San Andres and Old Providence (Colombia) and made into “something like moonshine.”  Another transcript mentioned that worms destroyed many early corn crops, which could explain why it never became a major staple in Cayman.

Apparently most old varieties of corn grown here were Caribbean flint corn: too tough to eat right off the cob like varieties we enjoy today (this strain makes superior grits.) Caymanians usually dried their corn before using and then soaked it, which made it easier to grate for porridge and cornmeal heavy cakes.

The coarse grits or “trash” enjoyed by other cultures were tossed to the chickens. Unlike the Bahamas and Southern US, Cayman never developed a taste for grits, nor did our forefathers grind corn into meal suitable for making into cornbread.

With our centuries old connection through  trade with and migration to and from corn loving cultures of Honduras and other Central American countries, why did Caymanian cuisine end up with such a limited range of corn recipes? It seems our corn-snubbing ancestors from the British Isles may be partially to blame.  A quick peek at this plant’s past explains why.

Archeologists theorize that maize was first cultivated either by the Inca high up in the Peruvian Andes or by the early inhabitants of Central Mexico. It’s certain that it had been domesticated in Mexico by 3600 BC and spread throughout the Americas and Caribbean as both sacred food and staple centuries before Europeans arrived. It was worshiped and consumed by the Aztecs, Maya and Caribbean Tainos and spread to the Eastern Woodlands of North America by around 200 AD.

Maize was the name Columbus gave this new grain, adapted from the spoken Taino word mahiz which meant “grain of the gods.”  When he arrived in Cuba during his First Voyage in November 5, 1492, Columbus saw vast fields of Taino mahiz for the first time. His journal described his surprise at how good this new grain tasted. Taino usually ate mahiz roasted or coarsely ground, mixed with water and made into small flat cakes that were baked on hot stones: the Caribbean’s first cornbread. Impressed, Columbus carried seeds back to Spain and maize quickly spread all the way to Eastern Europe.  Portuguese traders carried it to Africa in the mid 1500’s, where it flourished and was further spread by Arab traders throughout North Africa and the Mediterranean.

England was the exception. There maize was considered food fit for swine and other livestock. In fact, maize wasn’t called “corn” until sometime after 1600 when the English confused things.  “Corn” was an old English word that referred to size: any small kernel or grain, from wheat to salt. Maize was just another “corn.”

Ironically, in the early 1600’s Native Americans insured the survival of starving English colonists at Jamestown by sharing their corn and teaching them how to eat it. The English ate it out of desperation, considering maize grossly inferior to wheat for breads. Even today, there are no recipes for cornbread of any kind in the bible of English bread baking, Elizabeth David’s authoritative English Bread & Yeast Cookery. Published in 1977, the book also states “Although increasingly important for animal food, maize is not yet an important English crop.”)

Cornmeal survived colonial English contempt to become an American culinary tradition in many forms. Colonial New England and Southern cooks developed their own regional variations of simple corn “journey cakes” or johnnycakes, hoe cakes, cornbreads, spoonbreads and cornmeal puddings. Recipes traveled west with pioneers and explorers—and southeast to the Bahamas. Loyalists fleeing the colonies during the American Revolution carried that passion for corn to the Bahamas and Turks & Caicos Islands. The culinary heritage of both includes cornmeal “johnnycake,” cornbread and grits.

In the colonial West Indies, maize returned home from Africa as food for slaves and livestock and cultures throughout the Caribbean developed their own corn creations, from Bajan cou-cou to Jamaican pone.

Cayman’s love of cornbread came much later. Cornbread may have arrived here from the Florida Keys, where it was a popular staple. The idea –and ingredients—could  have come home with “Caymanders,” the name given the Caymanian labor force who helped build Henry Flagler’s railroad connecting the Florida mainland with Key West in the early 1900’s.

Old Florida cookbooks feature recipes for sweet cornbreads often called “johnnycake” (Bahamian cornbread is also called this) including one called Custard Johnnycake, a cornbread with a custard layer on top. By the time Caymanian workers returned home the Quaker Oats company was making degerminated yellow cornmeal. That product has been widely available and economical for over 100 years and it has a long shelf life, important in the humid tropics. It’s the cornmeal most Caymanians still prefer today.

Sometime in the 20th century, we took American cornbread, adapted it and adopted it as our own. The distinguishing trait of Caymanian cornbread: we like it very sweet. Whether Custard Top Cornbread came from old Florida too, or was a happy accident of cornmeal chemistry, no one is sure.

I promise to discuss Custard Top Cornbread, that other favorite Caymanian corn-coction, later this month. But I am still waiting for Miss Corita Ebanks Mendoza to share her heirloom family recipe, which I heard is one of Cayman’s best. In the meantime, get going and bake some cornbread.

Recipes:
A few caveats about cornmeal. Don’t buy corn flour or Masa Harina by mistake for cornbread. Use self -rising cornmeal mixes only if the recipe calls for it, and yellow has more flavor than white.  These mixes contain cornmeal along with flour, baking powder and salt.  You can use other brands of cornmeal which comes in textures ranging from coarse to fine, but the quality may change the crumb texture of your cornbread. Another thing: be gentle and DON’T OVERMIX your batter or your bread crumb could be tough instead of tender.

Old Time Caymanian Cornbread
In times gone, this may have been made in a greased cast iron skillet,  which is the way many Southern US cooks still bake cornbread—it creates a nice crust you can’t get from any other pan. Without fresh milk readily available, we would have used coconut milk or evaporated milk. Parkay was favorite margarine years ago, but you can use any brand.

1-1/2 cups Quaker Yellow Corn Meal
3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar (1/2 cup if you like it sweeter)
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/4 cups evaporated milk or coconut milk
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 stick Parkay margarine, melted (1/2 cup)

Preheat oven to 400 F. Grease or butter an eight inch square baking pan. In a large mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients and blend with a fork. In separate bowl, mix together cream, eggs and margarine, then add all at once to dry ingredients. Mix just until blended, then pour batter into pan. Bake 20-25 minutes, until golden brown on top and knife inserted in center comes out clean—don’t over bake or bread will be too dry.  Cut into 9 squares.

Olga Adam’s Corn Bread
This is another treasured recipe from Olga Adam’s collection. This rich sweet cornbread with the extra moistness of creamed corn is an Adam family favorite—when served warm you really won’t need butter with it! This is a sweet, dense cornbread—the way many like it in Cayman. It is wonderful with Salt Beef & Beans or Red Bean soup for supper.

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal (not self rising)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg (or cinnamon)
3/5 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil or melted margarine
1/2 cup milk
1 large egg, beaten
1 8-ounce can cream-style corn

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease or spray with PAM on a 9 x 9 inch baking pan.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, salt, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg and sugar and stir with wire whisk or fork until well blended. Combine oil or margarine, milk and egg in small bowl and stir to blend, then add to flour mixture, stirring just until ingredients are mixed. Stir in creamed corn and then spoon batter into prepared pan.  Bake cornbread   30- 35 minutes at 350 degrees or until top is golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Remove from oven and cool in pan on wire rack 15 minutes before serving. Cover and refrigerate any leftovers—cornbread will keep for several days.