Take a Bit of Cornmeal, Add Water.....
I've always cherished this cookbook, self published by The Women's Auxiliary of Olivet Episcopal Church in Franconia, Virginia in 1957. It's chock-full of pickle recipes, arcane breads, church suppers - fried oysters for 200- and these esoteric axe-beaten biscuits. The Women's Auxilary do a fine job of tracing their recipes from those of their immediate (colonial, white ancestors). The results, like those axe-beaten biscuits, are both surprising and genuinely hilarious
First, a thoroughly humble cornbread for a not-so-humble man:
Such simple cornbread really needs good corn meal. Imagine how it would shine when made with freshly ground sweet corn.
But it's this ash cake that I really wanted to share: "Very particular people will cover the loaves with collard greens before the ashes are put over them." What an immediately appealing voice!