Cornmeal cooked into a thick porridge, set firm in a pan overnight, then sliced and fried crisp and golden. A two-meal food: soft mush hot, fried slices cold the next morning with sorghum or syrup.
Corn is the grain of the enslaved South, and in the mountains cornmeal mush stretched scarce food across two meals. Black mountain households served it soft for supper and fried the leftovers for breakfast — nothing wasted, every kernel doing double duty.
Stone-ground cornmeal keeps the germ and bran, providing fiber, magnesium, and B vitamins refined cornmeal loses. Cooking the mush and cooling it overnight develops resistant starch, which lowers the glycemic response when the slices are reheated — an unintentional blood-sugar benefit baked into the tradition. As a cheap, filling grain it fed families with little else.
Cook cornmeal with water and salt into a thick mush, pour into a loaf pan, and chill overnight until solid. Slice and fry the slices in a little fat until crisp and golden on both sides. Serve with sorghum, syrup, or honey.
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