I have to agree with you about the lightly sweetened cornbread with the beans, especially pintos. I also tend to use yellow cornmeal for that too; naturally sweeter.
I buy the little envelopes of cornbread mix. Add an egg, milk, mix, pour, bake- yum. I do add a tablespoon of sugar.
You’ve never seen my dumplings. They pretty much cover the top of the stew. 
Cornbread is delicious with beans, greens, green beans, vegetable soup, chili, and black-eyed peas. I love to get a vegetable plate and cornbread at a meat-and-three restaurant. I prefer unsweetened cornbread. My husband and sons love good old sweet Jiffy corn muffins. Those cheap little boxes of Jiffy mix are convenient to have around the house when you need to round out a meal.
Make Cornbread Not War
Whatever we don’t have biscuits with. Or garlic bread.
I want dumplings.
I’m making cornbread tomorrow 
Mom’s making chili and the neighbor is making some dips and munchies, and we’re having a big ol’ Sunday dinner 
Cornbread in a cast iron is absolutely the BEST, but I don’t have any, so I usually do mine in muffin tins as well. My favorite is sweet, with butter, but I occasionally throw a small can of diced chiles into the batter for a bit of zing and interest.
If you want it sweet, this is the only thing allowed on cornbread in my house.
And hell yes to the cast iron skillet.
I love the cornbread that the cooks make out on the boat for us. It’s wonderful. And it’s sweet. Those of you who are claiming cornbread should never itself be sweetened need to get off your high horses.
This makes me so sad I have to share my favorite cornbread recipe:
[ul]
[li]Get a 10" cast iron skillet, add a tablespoon of butter and put it in an oven preheated to 400F[/li][li]Stir together 2 cups yellow cornmeal (stone ground preferably), 1 tsp baking soda, and 1 tsp salt[/li][li]In a separate bowl beat 2 cups buttermilk, 2 eggs and 1 tbsp vegetable oil[/li][li]Combine the wet and dry mixtures, being careful not to overbeat[/li][li]Scrape the batter into the hot skillet and bake until it is golden brown and crusty at the edges, approx. 25 minutes.[/li][li]Serve warm[/li][/ul]
I love this because it has a great corn and buttermilk flavor. Simple and straightforward with just a few ingredients.
Give it a try Elendil’s Heir. If this doesn’t work then I will admit cornbread just doesn’t work for you. 
Sweet cornbread is an abomination foisted off on the unsuspecting by Yankees.
I cannot stand the taste of sweet cornbread. It’s just WRONG. So a pre-sweetened loaf of cornbread is just a mistake to me. You wanna put honey or molasses or other unnatural addenda on it, be my guest, but I will not partake of such unnatural culinary abominations.
No.
Just… no. Cornbread should not be sweet. Not even when it’s used to make dressing at Thanksgiving.
My brother-in-law has eaten my cooking many times. I think that he likes the beans and cornbread the most…and yes, it’s Jiffy cornbread. I make the beans from dried beans, usually pinto beans, though I’ve been known to use other beans.
To us Yankees, unsweetened cornbread is one of those things that begs the question, “Why does this exist?” Unless you’re making conbread stuffing/dressing, that is.
I’ve never been big on cornbread, but I do like it with chili.
I guess the people who don’t like sweet cornbread also don’t want syrup on their polenta*.
- fried cornmeal mush
My absolute favorite cornbread mix is that little cheap box of Jiffy. The best.
I can’t stand polenta :shudders: It’s a texture thing, right up there with oatmeal.
Wait, I thought the regional divide was the other way around, sweet in the South and not in the North. In any event, all of my Yankee family (from the northern Appalachians) makes it unsweetened.
And it exists to put butter on it, and to sop up all sorts of tasty food liquids. It doesn’t need to be sweet for either of those purposes. It’s the sweet cornbread that must leave one questioning its purpose.
I realize this isn’t really on topic, but I just have to point out that the terms “to beg the question” and “to raise the question” mean very different things.
Here’s a good explanation of what it means to beg the question:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/begging-the-question.html