By special request, just for Ed T (Any anyone else who's interested)

On Sunday mornings I make a fairly elaborate breakfast for my family. This morning, it included my all-time favorite cornbread recipe, as follows:

Nebraska Spider* Corn Bread

1-1/4 cups corn meal (preferably the rough ground, non defatted kind)
1 Tbs light brown sugar
1 tsp soda (note, not baking powder, but soda)
1 tsp salt
3 Tbsp melted butter for the batter
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups buttermilk
3 Tbsp fat for the spider*

Mix the dry ingredients and add the liquids which have been mixed together. Melt the spider-fat in a 10-inch spider (iron skillet), tip pan so sides are greased, and add the batter. Bake 20 minutes at 375 degrees. Cut in wedges and serve hot with butter (as if you need yet MORE butter!). I always serve this with honey or sorghum syrup. This is soft, really too soft to pick up and eat, I think, so you'll need forks.

*"spider" in this case is not an arachnid, but an iron skillet. In times gone past, it would have three legs cast as part of it, so that it could sit the in coals of a fire and bake. Thus the descriptive term "spider".

Dave Oesterreich