Old rations channel

[First Shirt]

If it doesn't work for you, I'll see if I can pin Mom down to an actual, measurable, recipe. Do NOT, under any circumstances, hold your breath while I try. Between my work schedule, and Mom's delusions of "upscale" it might take a week or more!! (She thinks that people of substance and learning eat biscuits with every meal, not just for breakfast.)

[toad]

I don't know if it's a Texas thing or not but I like a corn bread with bits of bacon and Jalapeno pepper in it. With pinto beans on the side.

[Darrell]

Anybody want to share a recipe for authentic southern cornbread?

IIRC, my wife's grandmother's recipe was "a handful of corn meal, and handful of flour, and egg if you've got it." There must have been leavening. She was from Arkansas.

I grew up in Indiana, so we had some sugar in ours. I loves me some ham and beans and cornbread. The beans were Great Northerns.

Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Pour a few tablespoons of oil in a large cast iron skillet, put it in the oven while it preheats.

1 cup flour
1 cup cornmeal
1 tsp salt
2tsp-1 tbs baking powder (I use 1 tbs/3tsp)
1 tsp-3 tbs sugar (you won't taste 1 teaspoon; sugar it up if you like sweet cornbread)

Mix dry ingredients together

Add:

2 eggs
1/4 cup oil
1 cup milk

Stir it all together, don't overdo it, just bring it together. Remove the skillet from oven, swirl the oil around to coat the sides and bottom, then dump in the mixture. It will sizzle, it's supposed to. Spread it evenly, bake for 30-35 minutes. A toothpick should come out clean when inserted into the center. Serve immediately.

If you want to jazz it up a bit, add a 4 oz can of jalapenos or chopped green chiles (my preference), and a half cup or more of shredded cheese such as cheddar, Colby or Monterey jack, stir it in before putting in the skillet.

As for the old rations on youtube, I think the same guy has a new one--he opens a pack of 65 year old Chesterfields from a rations accessory can and smokes one. An ex-smoker, he appears to enjoy it a bit too much.

[SoupOrMan]

I just can't fathom that anybody could ever have a problem with any cornbread.

Insanity.

It was college. I saw corn as one of three things: cattle feed, whiskey stock and fuel for Formula 1 cars.

[MarkD]

As for the old rations on youtube, I think the same guy has a new one--he opens a pack of 65 year old Chesterfields from a rations accessory can and smokes one. An ex-smoker, he appears to enjoy it a bit too much.

My dad had a friend he worked with in, I'm gonna say, the late 60s who was an ex smoker. He carried a pack of cigarettes to give anyone who asked for one. It was lucky strikes with a green wrapper. They'd be left with a paper tube and tobacco dust down their throats. No one ever bummed two cigarettes from him.

[HTRN]

It was college. I saw corn as one of three things: cattle feed, whiskey stock and fuel for Formula 1 cars.

Formula 1 uses gasoline. American open wheel racing uses methanol. Neither are derived from corn.

[SoupOrMan]

Maybe it was a different race then. Someone was using pure ethanol for racing fuel and it seemed okay. Maybe it was a test run? Then again, this was 15 years ago.

[Darrell]

Here's the vid I mentioned of the guy with the Chesterfields:

https://youtu.be/ZSgfpTZEgGU

He gets pretty wired, too.

[First Shirt]

I got a package of C-rations on Okinawa, during a typhoon, that had unfiltered Kools in it. Was like smoking a Christmas tree.

[JAG2955]

Darrell, that was neat. I was shocked at how well that stuff was preserved. I wish that he would have tried the coffee and the milk, too. MRE gum isn't even that well preserved after a year or two. If someone will open it up 65 years from the date of manufacture, I'll send someone an MRE.