I do see Bob’s Red Mill cornbread mix in grocery stores in Toronto. Since I lived in Texas for years, I have developed a liking for cornbread and buy the mix, I know, every once in a while for a side with my spicy beans.
We always have Johnny cakes with dinner when we eat at Yvette’s in St Martin.
I’ve never thought they were anything like cornbread. They are more like fried bread. In fact, a TripAdvisor restaurant reviewer said:
Canadian here. I make cornbread - the kind made with cornmeal and leavened with baking powder fairly often. My ancient Purity Flour cookbook calls it Johnnycake.
If I made the same recipe in muffin tins rather than a square pan, then they would be cornmeal muffins.
I also used to buy a yeast leavened corn bread. Dense, heavy and with a solid crust, but that was when I lived in a neighbourhood with a large population of Portuguese immigrants. Good stuff, best served slathered in butter.
I was at work once when I overheard two of my coworkers who coincidentally happened to both be from the UK. First, they were amazed that you can drive for 12 hours and still be in the same state (Texas). Then they started making fun of us Yanks because of this stuff called “cornbread”, one of them said to the other: “It’s like having cake with your dinner!”.
“The sun is ris, the sun is set, and here we is, in Texas yet.”
That sounds exactly like something those bastards would do.
Cornbread varies regionally within the US, too. When I was growing up in New England, cornbread was usually sweeter and more cake-like (higher percentage of wheat flour). In the south, it’s much more common to have little or no sugar and often has other ingredients mixed in (whole corn kernels, seasonings, cheese, or diced jalepenos for example). It tends to be drier and crumblier, IME.
Of course it’s not a hard a fast rule. There’s a wide spectrum of cornbread sweetness and density almost anywhere within the US.
It varies, but usually crumbly. But the butter don’t make crumbs because you put that stuff on while the bread is still piping, anyway, so it melts on.
Supposed to be coarse and crumbly, no sweetness. Mash it into your ham and beans, add raw chopped onion and some Tabasco. That’s how it’s done.
I’m Canadian and I usually only see cornbread at rib joints.
My mom used to make cornbread muffins to eat along with chili. They were not bad hot out of the oven with a little butter.
Gladiola Martha White Yellow Cornbread Mix will get you in the ballpark. Preheat cast iron skillet, pour batter in, bake until done. Preheating the skillet gives a crust on the bottom.
I know it as “Heavy Loaf”, if it’s the same thing… a yellow coloured dense, rather sweet tasting bread sold in Jamaican shops.
I’ve heard that the sweetness of cornbread is a North-South thing, with Northerners sweetening it and Southerners not, but I’ve had sweet cornbread before, and it was nothing at all like what I grew up on in Ohio with Pennsylvania roots. And it also wasn’t at all what I would call right: If you like your cornbread sweet, then do like civilized folks do, and put some honey, molasses, or maple syrup on it after it’s baked.
Maybe sweet cornbread is just a New England thing.
I’ve baked this for Thanksgiving every year since I’ve been living in Toronto. I saw ready-made cornbread in the baked goods section of my local supermarket for the first time a few weeks ago.
THAT’S serious southern cornbread! We use a bit of shortening melted in the hot skillet before pouring the batter in. It should be almost fluffy and triangular from a skillet with very little sweetness. Square, dense, deep dish cornbread is for restaurants and cafeterias wanting to mass-produce something resembling cornbread.
My mom used to use a round griddle that was only about 1/2" deep. The cornbread batter rose to about 1’’ thick at the center and there was a crunchy brown crust on the edges. Delicious with cold milk (or Coke 
- seriously). Cornbread in a glass of milk was called Po-Jo and eaten with a spoon.
I agree. I’m a lifelong Yankee but I appreciate good Southern cooking and I HATE sugar or wheat flour in my cornbread.
For an 8-inch cast iron skillet, mix into batter:
1 cup white cornmeal
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp salt
(I usually add black pepper, but that’s not Gospel)
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup buttermilk.
That’s it. That’s all. Pour it into your preheated skillet (you put a tablespoon of bacon grease or peanut oil in it before you put it in the oven) and bake at 425 for 20 minutes.
American cousine was always marked by how sweet it is. Australia has shifted a lot in the last 50 years, to the point where a great deal of our food uses American recipes: peanut butter, take-away pizza, canned soup etc etc. But 50 years ago that stuff would have been inedible. And our NZ connections had the same reaction: your main meal can’t be sweet.
Anyway. Cornbread is not an AUS food. Polenta (cornmeal) is available in the supermarkets, used to make Polenta (corn mush), and that’s an ethnic (Italian) food.
I’m neutral on sweet/savory cornbread, since I don’t eat it much, but the way my mother made it was cornsticks, in a cornstick pan, no suger at all, but eaten by us with jam. for Sunday breakfast.
Canadian also, and my grandmother would make it. I liked it so much that I asked for the recipe, and learned how to make it myself.
And we also called it Johnnycake. Great for breakfast, warm from the oven, with butter and syrup. But welcome any other time too.
I often use Martha White Sweet Yellow cornbread mix instead of mixing it from scratch. It makes a very good cornbread.
Regional specialities often require fresh bizarre ingrediants that donit transport well, complex cooking techniques or specialized implements impractical for the regular fare of the region.
Cornbread is easy as shit to make, requires corn meal, flour, sugar and butter which can be had everywhere on this planet and keeps like nuclear waste. Kindergarteners can make it and frequently do in school around here.
It’s an American gift to the world, it’s not on us if no one else indulges.