m as made into a hot pan well
sprinkled with dry meal. The pan should be hot enough to brown the meal
without burning it. Make the pones about an inch thick, four inches
long, and two and a half broad. Bake quickly, taking care not to scorch,
until there is a brown crust top and bottom. For hoe-cakes make the
dough a trifle softer, lay it by handfuls upon a hot-meal-sprinkled
griddle, taking care the handfuls do not touch. Flatten to half an inch,
let brown underneath, then turn, press down and brown the upper side. Do
not let yourself be seduced into adding salt--the delight of plain
corn-bread is its affinity for fresh butter. It should be eaten drenched
with butter of its own melting--the butter laid in the heart of it after
splitting pone or hoe-cake. Salt destroys this fine affinity. It
however savors somewhat bread to be eaten butterless. Therefore Mammy
always said: "Salt in corn-bread hit does taste so po' white-folks'y."
She had little patience with those neighbors of ours who perforce had no
butter to their bread.

_Egg Bread_: (Mammy's.) Beat two eggs very light with a pinch of salt,
add two cups sifted cornmeal, then wet with a pint of buttermilk in
which a teaspoonful of soda has been dissolved. Stir in a spoonful of
shortening, barely melted, mix well, and pour into well greased pans or
skillets, cook quickly, till the crust is a good brown, and serve
immediately. Or bake in muffin moulds. For delicate stomachs the
shortening can be left out, but pans or moulds must be greased extra
well. If milk is very sour, make it one-third water--this is better than
putting in more soda.

_Batter Cakes_: (Old Style.) Sift together half-cup flour, cup and a
half meal, add pinch of salt, scald with boiling water, stir smooth,
then add two eggs well beaten, and thin with sweet milk--it will take
about half a pint. Bake by spoonfuls on a hot, well-greased griddle--the
batter must run very freely. Serve very hot with fresh sausage, or fried
pigs' feet if you would know just how good batter cakes can be.

_Ash Cake_: (Pioneer.) This is possible only with wood fires--to campers
or millionaires. Make dough as for plain bread, but add the least trifle
of salt, sweep the hot hearth very clean, pile the dough on it in a
flattish mound, cover with big leaves--cabbage leaves will do at a
pinch, or even thick clean paper, then pile on embers with coals over
them and leave for an hour or more, according to size. Take up, brush
of