Finding America in Community and Cornbread

When my German cousins came to visit us in El Cerrito earlier this month they said they wanted to experience “real America,” including the food, which I was in charge of.

“Real America” is multicultural, so I laid down the plan accordingly, curating a small but mighty collection of recipes and constructing a restaurant itinerary.

We’d have Caribbean at Primo Patio Cafe in The City, fiery Indian snacks at in Berkeley, and home-style Thai at in El Cerrito. I penciled in visits to Las Grullensas Taco Truck in Richmond and for take-out Vietnamese sammies.

My plan didn’t go over too well.

I quickly caught on that what they had in mind was more Americana than real, present-day America. We’re talking Frank Capra, Walt Whitman and Thomas Hart Benton with an Atticus Finch closing argument and a couple of lemonade stands for good measure.

I inventoried what we had to offer, food and otherwise. El Cerrito — check. It might not be Mayberry, but we have lovely homes, front porches, beautiful gardens and friendly people. Fourth of July — double-check. , the Albany Lions Club and our own gas grill churning out New York strip steaks in the backyard — what could be more fitting?

Corn on the cob wouldn’t hurt, either. Because corn never caught on big in Europe, I correctly guessed that our visitors had never seen an ear of corn in its husk.

Problem was they wouldn’t chow down on whole ears, typewriter-style. No amount of peer pressure could get them to put down their knives and cease decobbing — which pretty much negated the corn-on-the-cob experience I was going for.

Early next morning the leftover Brentwood sweet corn and I hatched a plan: I’d make cornbread, a dish woven into the fabric of my homeland but wholly unfamiliar to my European kinfolk. I’d add some fresh corn to it.

Cornbread is a quick bread, meaning leavened without yeast, like banana walnut bread — and there’s a North/South divide.

Northern cornbread is like cake, often containing equal amounts of wheat flour and yellow cornmeal. There’s a liberal amount of sugar, whole milk and oil and it’s baked in a cake pan.

Southern cornbread is a bit salty, flatter and more crumbly, having no wheat flour or very little. White corn meal is generally used, and sugar is omitted or limited to a tiny amount. Oil is nixed in favor of butter or rendered bacon fat, and buttermilk stands in for the milk. Southern cornbread is baked in a cast iron skillet to develop a crunchy crust, and is meant to be eaten hot out of the pan with something to mop up, like BBQ sauce or juices from a pot of greens. Leftovers, which can be on the dry side, are perfect for Tennessee-style Cornbread Salad (see attached recipe) or dunking in milk or buttermilk.

My Southern friends take cornbread seriously and get hot under the collar at the mere mention of sweet cornbread, which they apparently have no use for. It’s nevertheless the one I made first, figuring I could ease into a Southern version later in the week.

I always use the Albers box recipe for Yankee-style cornbread, this time reducing the sugar by half and tossing in a cup of cooked corn kernels for a Southwestern twist.

It was a hit. The liverwurst went untouched at breakfast.

Several days later I made souped-up individual cornbreads in cast iron muffin tins. Flavor combos included jalapeno and aged white cheddar, feta and green onion, roasted corn and bacon, sun-dried tomato and shaved parmesan, and browned Canadian bacon and pineapple. Plain ones were offered with cultured butter, real maple syrup and bacon strips.

A Southern-style recipe with some wheat flour and a little sugar (see attached recipe) works well with savory additions, as does a Northern version with reduced sugar, but leftovers hold up better with the latter.

Cornbread is a frugal dish at heart and certainly doesn’t need adornment, but it’s nice to pull out the stops for company.

My cousins are still raving about their time here — especially Independence Day.

After two full meals each at the pancake breakfast, they walked over to the El Cerrito shindig, where a police officer invited them to sit on his motorcycle for photos, which they couldn’t get over.

That evening we hauled a large ganache-coated American flag cake to the picnic table and belted out the National Anthem.