A Foodie Post (Sort Of)

One of the few foods that I absolutely love is cornbread. Both my grandmothers and my mother can make excellent cornbread. It has to be just right, the balance of corn meal to butter in the finished product.

From Wikipedia:

Native Americans were using ground corn (maize) for food thousands of years before European explorers arrived in the New World. European settlers, especially those who resided in the southern English colonies, learned the original recipes and processes for corn dishes from the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek, and soon they devised recipes for using cornmeal in breads similar to those made of grains available in Europe. Cornbread has been called a "cornerstone" of Southern United States cuisine. Cornmeal is produced by grinding dry raw corn grains. A coarser meal (compare flour) made from corn is grits. Grits are produced by soaking raw corn grains in hot water containing calcium hydroxide (the alkaline salt), which loosens the grain hulls (bran) and increases the nutritional value of the product (by increasing available niacin and available amino acids). These are separated by washing and flotation in water, and the now softened slightly swelled grains are called hominy. Hominy, posole in Spanish, also is ground into masa harina for tamales and tortillas). This ancient Native American technology has been named nixtamalization. Besides cornbread, Native Americans used corn to make numerous other dishes from the familiar hominy grits to alcoholic beverages (such as Andean chicha). Cornbread was popular during the American Civil War because it was very cheap and could be made in many different forms—high-rising, fluffy loaves or simply fried (as unleavened pone, corn fritters, hoecakes, etc.)

Corn dogs! I love corn dogs.  Just the corn dog and some mustard. It's just perfection in junk food form. I can't remember where I first had a corn dog, at the beach maybe? Probably. I see them all the time there. Maybe the State Fair? I can smell them now as I'm writing this and my mouth is watering. A smell stuck in my memory not so much for the dog part as that sweet cornbread around it. I love the taste and texture of it.

From Wikipedia:

There is some debate as to the exact origins of the corn dog; they appeared in some ways in the US by the 1920s, and were popularized nationally in the 1940s. A US patent filed in 1927, granted in 1929, for aCombined Dipping, Cooking, and Article Holding Apparatus, describes corn dogs, among other fried food impaled on a stick; it reads in part:

I have discovered that articles of food such, for instance, as wieners, boiled ham, hard boiled eggs, cheese, sliced peaches, pineapples, bananas and like fruit, and cherries, dates, figs, strawberries, etc., when impaled on sticks and dipped in batter, which includes in its ingredients a self rising flour, and then deep fried in a vegetable oil at a temperature of about 390°F., the resultant food product on a stick for a handle is a clean, wholesome and tasty refreshment.

In 300 Years of Kitchen Collectibles, author Linda Campbell Franklin states that a "Krusty Korn Dog baker" machine appeared in the 1929 Albert Pick-L. Barth wholesale catalog of hotel and restaurant supplies. The 'korn dogs' were baked in a corn batter and resembled ears of corn when cooked.

A number of current corn dog vendors claim credit for the invention and/or popularization of the corn dog. Carl and Neil Fletcher lay such a claim, having introduced their "Corny Dogs" at the Texas State Fair sometime between 1938 and 1942.^[3] The Pronto Pup vendors at the Minnesota State Fair claim to have invented the corn dog in 1941. Cozy Dog Drive-in, in Springfield, Illinois, claims to have been the first to serve corn dogs on sticks, on June 16, 1946.  Also in 1946, Dave Barham opened the first location of Hot Dog on a Stick at Muscle Beach, Santa Monica, California.

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No matter where or when it came from I am certainly glad it did. You can also get these on Amazon. It's a lot of 1000 for $20.00. That's a pretty good deal. And I am sure that some enterprising person with the right motivation could make something with corn dog sticks as well of find other uses for them.

I write because of things that come into my head during the day and this has been in there rattling around for most of this one. We ordered supper out last night and the kids both wanted corn dogs and so did I. I went to town and picked up supper having to smell them and wanting to eat them all the way home. Even the kids. I wanted to take food from my babies mouths. (Did I mention I love this mixture of two of my favorite things?)

Arriving home we un-boxed supper and sat down at the table, something we are slowly getting back into every night, TV off, quiet family dinner. Well, not quiet. Not my kids. There's usually a raised voice or two.

Anyway, I sat and watched these two heathen children peel all the cornbread off the corn dog and proceed to eat the weenie inside. This confuses me. Why didn't I just get some weenies and a nice stick from a tree outside? You've taken the best part and discarded it. That's like keeping the wrapping paper and throwing away the present to me. Not a direct mental image but you know what I mean if you are reading this. Or if you have kids.

I'm torn on the subject between the discarding the corn bread and the fact that I am the recipient of the discarded corn bread. It would seem that it's a win win, but I feel as if my children have no religion. Also that deal on Amazon and buying hot dogs weenies at the store and just doing that makes more sense than buying them corndogs. Again. I would miss out on the discarded corn bread. I am starting to think I need to have them both checked. Also, if anyone want in on a thousand corn dog sticks, I may have a deal for you.