Well, I live in the South and absolutely love vinegar-based bbq sauce (with lots of red pepper flakes floating in it). I also prefer my cornbread somewhat dry, crunchy on the outside, and non-sweet (goes great crumbled in hot chili).
@gouf78 Up here,they now serve iced tea in winter. It’s safe to visit.
But I do remember moving here 25 years ago, when they couldn’t fathom it.
I like my cornbread whichever way you serve it to me, but I’ve had ones that I thought were too sweet and ones that were too dry. My preference is for a middle ground, but that was an interesting discussion. I don’t make cornbread for celebration meals, but my Florida sister-in-law makes white folks style cornbread and my DC sister-in-law makes one that verges on corn pudding and is a bit sweet.
I also like my BBQ however you want to serve it to me. Learned to love KC style first, then the vinegar based ones in the south, and lastly the Texas brisket with no sauce at all.
Sweet Tea: No thanks. Some of it is liquid sugar.
Corn bread: a little sweet and it has to be moist. No dry, crumbly stuff for me. The best cornbread is from Eatzi’s Market in Dallas - very corny, super moist, cooked in a cast iron skillet until crunchy on the edges but super moist and eggy in the center like a cross between corn bread and corn pudding, corn kernels in it. If anyone has a recipe like that, let me know.
BBQ: I like all kinds of BBQ and I do enjoy NC (although there is western and eastern NC styles) vinegar based sauces a lot.
Truthfully I don’t love it either aside from in dressing (stuffing) . I grew up eating it crumbled in a glass of milk (I know it sounds strange -my parents roots were very humble) I guess that took care of the dry part!
There has been a lot on this board lately about what southerners do or don’t do or believe or don’t believe and it is making me a little crazy. Much of it isn’t true for me- I am not saying it isn’t true for some southerners but “Southern” isn’t the same thing for every state, every race,costal regions, or mountain regions, rural or urban south of the mason dixon line 
The only time I make cornbread is for dressing–and no on sugar for that! Savory and sweet isn’t a good mix in that instance.
My dad loved cornbread sticks (he’s 95 now from Alabama)–dry and crusty but lots of butter and maybe honey too.
I tried to like it when I was little but never could. Too dry.
I do like a jalapeno Mexican corn bread from a recipe I got on-line. Sweeter, corn-y and with a real bite.
Not something my mom for sure would have tried–she didn’t like anything hot!
It’s FOOD! and a thousand sites and TV shows are devoted to regions and variations on a theme.
If you did an “Alien Space” cook book, there would be a ton of aliens with differing views on what was appropriate and the best sauce for space worms. And if the “light” side of the planet had a better recipe than the “dark” side.
I grew up in a south-ish state and our cornbread was not sweet. And it was made with corn meal mix not plain corn meal. I haven’t been able to find corn meal mix in grocery stores since I left my home state. I’ve researched how to make your own cornmeal mix and have found many recipes, so that problem must be common with southern transplants.
We added honey and butter for sweetness.
We also made cornbread dressing instead of bread based stuffing for holidays.
When I was little, my Dad and I would share a glass of milk with left-over hard cornbread crumbled in it like @veruca.
@veruca, did your relatives ever eat poke “salat”? My grandmother used to make it although I’ve never tried it and it sounds gross to me.
I lived in the SW for 16 years and I had many Native American friends and co-workers and I never saw any of them prepare or eat cornbread. They did use cornmeal masa (I think) when making tamales and corn tortillas. Posole was also a popular NA food (made with hominy).
Amazon sells cornmeal mix: https://www.amazon.com/Martha-White-Self-Rising-Enriched-Ounce/dp/B06WLMNMMZ/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1512956353&sr=8-2&keywords=cornmeal+mix
It seems to be cornmeal with flour and baking powder added.
Cornbread with black eye peas for New Year’s Day… who is with me?
Have eaten cornbread every which way… everyone and their Momma has a preference so I will not begrudge anyone for having a favorite… usually the cornbread of your childhood.
A misguided person made corn bread with blueberries for a potluck and it got pushed around people’s plates and hidden under napkins.
Corn meal based products are very New England as well. There are some really old recipes like corn fritters and indian pudding that use it. I haven’t had cornbread with blueberries in it but it isn’t unusual to see blueberry corn muffins or blueberry corn cakes so it doesn’t seem odd to me.
Thanks @Cardinal Fang Yeah, I was thinking of attempting to make cornbread dressing for this Thanksgiving and looked online to see if corn meal mix was available (when I said “we” above, I was referring to my family members, not me, lol). I saw that you could get it online, but just decided to purchase the ingredients to make it from my local grocery store. And then I didn’t feel confident enough to try to make the dressing - the last time I tried was a disaster. My mother’s is superb, but I just cant replicate it. Mine turns out flat and dense, not fluffy and light.
Maybe I’ll get brave and try it for Christmas .
@LeastComplicated - I never have had poke salat -Although when I was a kid I heard people talk about it. We used th throw the berries at each other as children.
@“Cardinal Fang” That is the brand my Mom used to buy.
@beerme -that is funny. Although I think for breakfast a sweet corn muffin (the kind with flour in it) would taste very nice with blueberries- Just not what I would have along side black eye peas
@beerme - cornbread with black-eyed peas for New Year’s is a requirement at my house!
No sugar in my cornbread…skillet cornbread with buttermilk…nice, crunchy edges…I grew up in Texas and that’s the way it was done. Pioneer Woman has a good recipe, if you’re interested.
Any bread, muffin, waffle, or pancake recipe made with buttermilk is delicious. If you cannot get fresh buttermilk, then Saco is available.
I need to double check with my mother. I do recall that she said she added white flour to her skillet cornbread recipe, much to my shock. She grew up in the rural deep south at least 10 miles from the nearest “town.” Her father milled his own corn with a horse and a giant stone. Her skillet cornbread was always slightly sweet. Whereas my dad, originally from the state next door, loved savory cornbread. Interestingly, mother’s skillet cornbread and her cornbread dressing were really two different animals.
By the way, my dad also loved cornbread crumbled in a glass of buttermilk.
This thread is making me miss my grandmother and my daddy. Blackeyed peas were always made for NYE.
Does this look like a reasonable hushpuppy recipe? http://allrecipes.com/recipe/16088/hush-puppies-i/
@“Snowball City” Oh that’s a real tradition for NYE. I thought @beerme had made that up. Was a good idea anyway.
With DH’s roots, we’re black-eyed peas for New Year’s Day. If it’s supposed to be NYE, that got lost over the years.
Often, doctored up.
In my days living in the south, the true southerners I knew would eat ham, black eyed peas, cornbread, and collards or other greens on New Year’s Day and they were supposed to represent health and wealth in the new year.
Yes, @doschicos. But I don’t think I ever had cornbread with my MIL. It was biscuits (and Smithfield ham biscuits.) My own older family was immigrant and their mantra for the New Year’s Day meal was “Pork for Prosperity.”