The Bread That Cooked on a HOE BLADE (The Southern Way)

A five-pound sack of cornmeal was the cheapest thing in the store - and for a lot of kitchens it was the thing standing between a family and an empty table. Miss Loretta walks all three jobs that sack did: the dumplings that drink a pot of seasoned greens liquor, the hoecake that cooked on flat iron over an open fire, and the cracklin' that turned a handful of rendered meat into a whole pan of bread. None of it was poverty cooking - it was arithmetic. Cornmeal kept without refrigeration, forgave a rough hand and multiplied: a pot of greens became a supper, a little fire became an oven, and a jar of rendered cracklin' became the bread that carried the meat farther than the meat could go alone. In this video: 1.The dumplings that put bread inside the pot instead of beside it 2.How hoecake got its name - and why a dry skillet works the same today 3.What cracklin' through the bread did to a jar of rendered meat 4.Why nobody wrote the method down 5.Why cornmeal kept, forgave and multiplied when flour could not Did your family stretch a pot this way - and which of the three jobs did your kitchen lean on most?