Cornmeal cooked into a porridge, enriched with egg and milk and baked until it rises soft and custardy — a cornbread you eat with a spoon, not your hand. A Sunday-table and holiday bread.
Spoonbread is special-occasion cornbread, a dish that shows a cook took time and used the precious eggs and milk. In Virginia and the Carolinas it appears at holiday tables and Sunday dinners as the soft, elegant cousin of skillet cornbread.
The egg and milk lift spoonbread above plain cornbread nutritionally — adding complete protein, calcium, B12, and riboflavin to the whole-grain magnesium and fiber of the cornmeal. The custard texture makes it gentle on tender stomachs and easy for elders and children. Calcium and magnesium together support the bone density and blood-pressure regulation Black adults especially need.
Cook stone-ground cornmeal with milk into a smooth thick mush, cool slightly, then beat in egg yolks, a little fat, and salt. Fold in whipped egg whites for lift and bake in a buttered dish at 375°F until puffed and just set in the center. Serve immediately — it deflates as it cools.
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