How to Cook the Perfect Cornbread

Do you like this US classic sweet and dense or savoury and crumbly? Do you season with bacon fat, and add cheese or chillies? Or do you avoid it altogether in favour of bread made from wheat?
It is always the simplest foods that arouse the strongest emotions. Few people get worked up over the proper preparation of a salmon galantine, or indeed a croquembouche, but just as every Brit has got an opinion on the best way to mash potato, in the US, almost everyone reckons they know what makes good cornbread. After all, it's got a much longer history in the country than most modern Americans - Native Americans were roasting and grinding corn centuries before anyone else turned up. It took settlers a while to warm to this new grain - according to Betty Fussell's The Story of Corn, "for wheat eaters, corn was a punishment" - but warm they did. Although it is known today as a southern speciality, there is a northern version too, which tends to be sweeter and cakier. Heads roll over the distinction - as one poster on the food site chowhound observes, "My Texas daddy tells me that if you put sugar in cornbread you're liable to get shot."
Being a safe distance from either north or south, and without a particularly sweet tooth, I have to come out in favour of the coarser, more savoury southern bread, but as there are as many ways to make that as there are to Amarillo, I haven't narrowed the options much. Everyone at least agrees that the best cornbread is made at home - so here goes.
The corn

One of the distinctions between southern and northern cornbread is that the former tends to be made with white cornmeal and the latter with yellow, though even this isn't a hard and fast rule. Good-quality white cornmeal proves impossible to get here, but everything I read suggests it has a more muted flavour; the Cook's Illustrated New Best Recipe book tested 11 different varieties and concluded that "cornbreads made with yellow cornmeal had a consistently more potent corn flavour than those made with white cornmeal". Which is handy. But all yellow cornmeals are not made equal: according to the aforementioned chowhound, "the main key to a quality southern cornbread is to use as coarse a cornmeal as you can find". It is also important, flavourwise, to try to find a decent stoneground version, as Cook's Illustrated, the Joy of Cooking, southern icon Edna Lewis and her disciple Scott Peacock recommend. (Corn ground between stones tends to remain coarser, and retains more of its kernel, which gives it a stronger flavour.)
In this country, you would be hard pushed to find anything labelled as stoneground cornmeal, but Italian specialists are likely to sell stoneground polenta, which is, as far as I can tell, the same thing, so that's the best thing to use. If not, just look for coarse cornmeal or polenta (which can often be found in the Caribbean section of supermarkets) - avoid any sort of instant polenta.
I come across mention of roasted cornmeal online, which apparently has a stronger corn flavour. I experiment with sticking a batch in the oven until it smells toasty before adding it to the batter, and find it does indeed enhance the flavour.
The flour

Northern cornbreads often cut the cornmeal with flour to lighten the texture; according to Fussell, "heaviness was a constant colonial complaint, which cooks sought to remedy by mixing cornmeal with the more finely ground flours of rye or wheat when they could get them". It's not unknown in southern versions either; Mississippi blogger Mary Foreman adds a few tablespoons, while food writer Ben Mims, also Mississippi-born, uses equal parts of flour and cornmeal in a recipe judged by the Southern Living test kitchen, no less, as "perfect". Their cornbreads are delicious, but, as someone who doesn't have to eat it with every meal, I prefer the coarser, crumblier texture and more assertive flavour of the all-corn versions.Raising agent
As Fussell notes, corn is stubbornly resistant to raising agents. Breads made from it will always be denser and heavier than yeast-raised wheat varieties, but that's not to say you can't make a bit of a difference with a little baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. The online recipe from Lewis and Peacock use cream of tartare and bicarb, in such generous amounts that the resulting bread is, to my taste, unpleasantly sour. I seek help from an American friend, Wendy Tien of the Upstart Kitchen, who tells me she's never come across a sour cornbread, and gets her husband to check Lewis and Peacock's cookbook, the Gift of Southern Cooking, for me. Mysteriously, this uses baking powder instead and tastes far better, which seems enough of a sign for me.Liquid

Eggs and buttermilk are non-negotiable ingredients for southern cornbread, but Foreman mixes her buttermilk with sour cream for a richer flavour, and Cooks Illustrated makes a "mush" with cornmeal and boiling water before adding the buttermilk, on the basis that this makes a bread that's "moist, tender, and rather fine-crumbed without flour". Their version is certainly softer than the Joy of Cooking variety, but I'm not convinced this is what I should be aiming for, until I try soaking some of the cornmeal in buttermilk overnight, an idea picked up from my trawling of endless internet debates on the subject. It's moist, without being too dense, and still crisp on the outside - perfect.
Seasoning

I'm going to be controversial here: while adding great spoonfuls of sugar makes the cornbread into something better served as dessert, as Cook's Illustrated observe, a little bit "seemed to enhance the natural sweetness of the corn without drawing attention to itself". Hell, I'm not even American, so I reckon I can get away with it. Foreman also adds creamed corn into her batter - a tin of the stuff in her case. As such things aren't easy to come by here, I have an excuse to make my own from fresh corn - happily, absurdly cheap at this time of year - flour, cream and sugar (though I chicken out of the full amount suggested in the recipe). I love the texture and the flavour the pieces of corn give the bread, and would recommend giving it a whirl, but I can't say it's absolutely necessary, especially with fresh corn so hard to come by for much of the year in this country.
Many recipes also stir hot fat into their batters, usually either bacon grease or butter. Unsurprisingly, this improves the flavour no end, though even I'd admit that Mims's half a cup of butter is a bit much. I do like his idea of browning the butter first though; it's almost as good as bacon fat. If you're planning to serve your cornbread with bacon anyway, I'd highly recommend the latter (indeed, cracklin' cornbread is another Southern speciality).
Baking

You can cook your cornbread in a baking tin if you like, but a cast-iron skillet is the traditional choice and, to my mind, the best. Either way, make sure you get the fat nice and hot before adding the batter (I like to keep it on the hob, rather than heating it in the oven as most recipes suggest, so it retains its heat) for that crisp brown crust which is the true mark of good southern cornbread. (Serves 6)
200g coarse cornmeal, preferably stoneground240ml buttermilk2 tbsp bacon grease or butter2 tsp soft light brown sugar½ tsp salt1 tsp baking powder¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda2 large eggs, beaten Toast the cornmeal in a dry frying pan until fragrant, then mix half with the buttermilk and leave to soak for at least a couple of hours, or overnight.
Heat the oven to 220C/425F/gas mark seven. Put the bacon grease or butter in a 20cm ovenproof frying pan (preferably well-seasoned cast-iron if you have it) over a medium-high heat, until the fat is sizzling and, if butter, turning brown. Stir together the remaining ingredients, including the rest of the toasted cornmeal, then tip the hot fat into the mixture and stir well to combine. Turn the heat up and pour in the batter; it should sizzle as it hits the pan. Transfer to the oven and bake until golden brown and firm in the middle. Serve warm. Let me have it: is this cornbread, or a poor British imitation of cornbread? Do you like yours sweet and dense, savoury and crumbly, with cheese or chillies - or not at all, because, you know, these days we have wheat? And what do you like to serve it with? (My vote goes to chilli con carne.)Felicity Cloake's perfect cornbread. Photograph: Felicity Cloake/Guardian