I moved to NC 40 years ago and I still have never been served an edible corn stick. My wife loved them. In fact, she preferred them to hush puppies. If I picked up barbecue (Eastern NC, of course), she’d always remind me to get extra corn sticks.
Thats the only place Ive ever had them, ENC bbq places. Theyre ok, I guess. Same with those boiled potatoes in red bbq sauce thing. I can see why one would prefer to hush puppies, b/c sometimes the hush puppies are too dessert like/cakey.
Btw, you have the BEST avatar on the whole site. That kitty looks like it has a very magic wand, casting a special spell from the Old Possoms book to guide all the other kitties to a magic kitty place. Like the old wise Deuteronomy
Yes, that’s where you get them most often. I like both the unsweetened and sweetened hush puppies, which causes almost as much discord between barbecue fans as ENC vs. WNC style barbecue.
And thank you for the comment on my avatar. It’s an unretouched close-up of my big baby…a black and white doll face Persian. Sadly, he passed about 12 years ago. His ashes are on my bookcase in a (surprise!) black and white marbled urn.
For me, corn bread made in a cast iron skillet and cut into big thick steaming wedges is so ridiculously good that anything else cornbread-related is unnecessary. Preheat the skillet in the oven, and plop a chunk of butter in the pan to melt right before pouring in the batter, and the batter sizzles and fries on the crust, and oh my god, why would you eat cornbread any other way?
We have one that my Mom used when I was a kid. I don’t think she made them anymore once I was gone, so she gave me the pan. I made them a couple of times, but stopped and Ms. P insisted that I relegate the pan to “decoration” status. It now lives in the basement. I like corn sticks well enough, but they’re not in the same league as cornbread or hush puppies.
Corn pone is usually closer to corn sticks than to cornbread. Like corn sticks, corn pone seems to be intended for long shelf life rather than edibility. I suspect that the “corn dodgers” mentioned in books and films are very similar to corn pone.
Corn pone has no leavening in it, unlike corn bread. It’s quite dense. Corn bread, corn sticks, and hush puppies all (usually) have some leavening agent. I suggested the similarity between corn sticks and corn pone only because they are both dense (to the point of being inedible, IMHO).
