Corn Bread

From: "Sugar an' Spice and All Things Nice," Julia Kiene. Mansfield, Ohio: Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Appliance Division, 1951.

I love vintage and antique cookbooks for many reasons, but especially because the recipes often call for lard or bacon fat. Unhealthy? Heck, yeah! But delicious? Holy moley, you betcha!

Bacon is one of the pleasures that makes me feel the guiltiest, not only because of how unhealthy it is (artery clogging fat, nitrates, etc.), but also because I try to limit the amount of meat I eat (better for the planet, don'cha know). So I don't buy it very often which, of course, means I don't have much bacon fat on hand. But when I do, this corn bread recipe is worth my limited supply of the delicacy known as bacon fat.

I also love old cookbooks because they are so audaciously sexist. Women cooked, men ate. "Sugar an' Spice" is a cookbook for kids and the author does acknowledge that boys might want to cook, but they can use their "own judgment about the apron." Girls, meanwhile, "can wear a simple, little cotton dress, and always an apron. You will look your very prettiest in clean cotton dresses with an apron tied around your middle." And, as every cook knows, looking your prettiest is key while cooking.

Sift together:
1 cup All-Purpose flour
3/4 cup corn meal
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup sweet milk [fresh milk that is not spoiled, sour or decaying - not as easy to have on hand in 1951 as it is today]
1 egg
2 tablespoons melted bacon fat

Put bacon fat in 9" x 14" baking pan, then place in oven while it is preheating to 425 degrees. Grab a pot holder when you take the pan out [when the oven reaches 425 degrees]. It's hot!

Beat the egg in separate bowl. Add milk to the egg. Add the egg and milk mixture to the sifted dry ingredients and add bacon fat. Mix thoroughly, but don't be too energetic about it. Take it easy.

By now, the pan is cool enough to rub the remainder of the grease that is left in the pan all over the bottom. Be sure your hands are clean and use your fingers.

Pour corn bread batter into greased pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.