Egg Bread (the Williams family cook's)

History

In "Dishes & Beverages of the Old South" (1913) this recipe carries the heading "Egg Bread: (Mammy's.)" — a buttermilk cornbread, and one of five dishes in the book credited to the same cook. The method is quick and exact: "Beat two eggs very light with a pinch of salt, add two cups sifted cornmeal, then wet with a pint of buttermilk in which a teaspoonful of soda has been dissolved." A spoonful of barely-melted shortening goes in, and it is poured into well-greased pans or skillets and cooked fast until the crust browns. She allows for variation from the cook's side rather than the recipe's: for delicate stomachs the shortening can be left out if the pans are greased extra well, and if the milk is very sour, make it one-third water — "this is better than putting in more soda."

"Mammy" was the author's word, not a name. McCulloch-Williams credits her white contributors by name throughout the volume — Betsy Vaughn, Leslie Fox, Aunt Polly Rives, Dorothy Dix — while the Black woman who ran her family's kitchen and taught her to cook appears only by a household role-title that the book never replaces with a name. Food historians have documented this as a convention of early-twentieth-century Southern cookbooks, in which Black cooks were credited as generic figures rather than named individuals. Foodymology titles the recipe for the cook, and keeps the book's original heading here in the record.

McCulloch-Williams was a white writer born near Clarksville, Tennessee, who grew up on a plantation in the years before the Civil War. Her book does not reckon with what it rests on: its dedication reads, "So here's to our Mammys — God bless them! God rest them! This imperfect chronicle of the nurture wherewith they fed us is inscribed with love to their memory," and its opening claims that being "the best fed people in the world" let "we of the South Country... put up the best fight in history." That framing belongs to the source and is worth knowing when reading it. The cooking itself is largely the work of the enslaved and formerly enslaved women it declines to name.

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• salt
• 2 cups cornmeal
• 1 pint buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 spoon shortening
• grease for pans

Instructions

1. Beat two eggs very light with a pinch of salt. Add two cups sifted cornmeal and stir well.
2. Dissolve a teaspoon of baking soda in a pint of buttermilk. If the milk is very sour, use one-third water and two-thirds milk instead of straight buttermilk, as this is better than adding more soda.
3. Wet the cornmeal mixture with the buttermilk liquid. Stir in a spoon of barely melted shortening (this can be omitted for delicate stomachs, though pans must then be greased extra well).
4. Mix well and pour into well-greased pans, skillets, or muffin moulds. Cook quickly until the crust is a good brown. Serve immediately.
5. Alternatively, bake in muffin moulds.