Plain Corn Bread (The Best.)

Ingredients

• white cornmeal
• cold water
• dry meal
• fresh butter

Instructions

1. Sift the white cornmeal and wet it with cold water to form a fairly soft dough. Shape the dough by tossing it from hand to hand into small pones about an inch thick, four inches long, and two and a half inches broad.
2. Lay the pones into a hot pan that has been well sprinkled with dry meal. The pan should be hot enough to brown the meal without burning it. Bake quickly, taking care not to scorch, until there is a brown crust on both top and bottom.
3. For hoe-cakes: Make the dough a trifle softer. Lay it by handfuls onto a hot griddle sprinkled with meal, taking care the handfuls do not touch. Flatten to half an inch thickness, let brown underneath, then turn, press down, and brown the upper side.
4. Serve hot with fresh butter melted into the heart of the split pone or hoe-cake. Do not add salt—the delight of plain cornbread is its affinity for fresh butter, and salt destroys this fine affinity.