This born-and-bred Southerner loves her Jiffy cornbread mini muffins so that you get all of the crispy-edged gloriousness. In my house, we eat them on NYD with black-eyed peas, in the fall with chili, and in the summer with purple hull peas.
I like slightly-sweet tea, as in a little sugar with my tea as opposed to a little tea with my sugar.
I love any kind of barbecue - pulled pork, brisket, ribs, saucy, dry rub, just bring it on!
I hate collards.
My family had commitments on NY Day and/or my memory could be faulty.
I grew up in Chicago surrounded by black people whose families were from Mississippi and Louisiana (since that’s how the railroads ran). I got used to cakey cornbread, but when I make it myself, I do a coarse, crunchy skillet bread. We never use anything but cornbread in stuffing/dressing.
i’m no use in cornbread debates, though. I have never been served fresh, hot cornbread that I didn’t like. I always choose it over a biscuit in any southern restaurant, even at breakfast.
We always have black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day for luck–you’re also supposed to have hog jowls, but we generally ignore that part of the tradition.
I think our cornbread (southern Virginia) was the “white” kind with no sugar.
Or ham hock.
OG… salt pork to cook black eye peas
or smoked ham hock
This thread did get me to order some Smithfield country ham, last eve.
Lived in south all my life and love all forms of cornbread. Even Jiffy mix has it’s place every now and then. My favorite (especially now that I have to be Gluten Free) is old school just cornmeal, made with buttermilk. To really be good the cast iron pan needs a layer of bacon grease, not butter. But most recipes I see have some flour also. Funny thing about article is that “sweet recipe” just had 2 Tablespoons of sugar - really not that sweet. The GF mix I use has several options based on how sweet you want it and the cake like version has more like a half a cup. I seldom make that.
Obviously to make Thanksgiving dressing, I do a making of cornbread with 0 sugar. Also love corn sticks made in the cast iron pan shaped like ears of corn - very crispy. Again, there’s no bad form of cornbread.
Vinegar/pepper BBQ is also the prevalent sauce in Pee Dee region of SC. I spent most of my life there and is my favorite. But also like more tomato-y sauce and mustard based sauce from midlands area.
Love sweet tea, but mostly given it up for water. Unsweetened tea = bleh.
For the first time in my life I made and ate cornbread pudding for Thanksgiving this year. Certainly not the healthiest dish of my life. Hardest part was figuring out where creamed corn was in the grocery store - canned veggies, bottom row.
After going to Memphis I have to say I prefer their bbq to NC, but I do still love Hersey’s on our way through.
You also know where you are geographically by the iced tea - in the south they assume sweet, in the north they assume unsweet, in the middle it can go either way. When hubby asked for unsweet tea in an Alabama they had to actually go make some because no one ever gets it like that for them to make a pitcher.
“Even Jiffy mix has it’s place every now and then.”
My mother swears by Pepperidge Farm cornbread stuffing crumbs. I don’t have any trouble eating a heap of that every Thanksgiving.
When I get sick and I want my mom to fuss over me I ask her to make me a dish of spoon bread. It is like cornbread meets soufflé. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/153895/olde-tavern-spoon-bread/ Total comfort food for me.
I mixed into our cornbread some diced, fresh jalapenos from my garden this year, like my grandad used to do. It was awesome!
Wonder if hushpuppies follow the same divide - I’ve had them anywhere from sweet, to mostly flour to more cornmeal like a little ball of fried cornbread.
Also, my grandmother use to make cornbread batter but fry them up like little pancakes - very crispy edges and fast.
Your grandmother fried you up a batch of Hoecakes.
Yum.
We call them corn cakes or johnnycakes.
My grandmother’s hushpuppies were very cornbready with little bits of onion in them.
Again, I can go several ways with hushpuppies. There’s something traditional about savory ones with bit of onion. But also had a love for plain ones that you put honey butter on. Sadly with celiac I haven’t had either in a while since I’d have to make them myself 
@scmom12 Those pancakes with lacey edges. Definitely Johnnycakes. Modern recipe from Rhode Island and we still have the grist mill that grinds white, yellow, red and blue corn into meal and flour. We are friends with the mill owners. RI is claiming this masterpiece. Thank you. Our southern friends can claim hushpuppies. Another brilliant recipe. We won’t argue that those are corn fritters. All yours.
@snowball My moms hushpuppies were savory with onion as well.
@snowball city, D1 has lived in Chapel Hill, and now Durham, for 7 years, (with a short stint in the middle to live in a northwest state) between undergrad and her Ph.D studies. She has become a traitor to her Texas roots and now embraces the vinegar BBQ sauce with much gusto. 
We are going to smoke a brisket while she’s home. I just ordered the Whole Hog vinegar sauce to surprise her. Crossing fingers it meets with her approval. Thanks for the tip.