Cornbread. For some people that is close to a sacred word. There’s arguments a plenty on the amount of cornmeal vs. flour (if any at all), buttermilk or regular milk, sugar or not. For me, I’ve had good and I’ve had bad. Some moist, some dry, some sawdust textured and others practically cake-like. As far as recipes I’ve used, I’ve run the gamut of prepared Jiffy ® mixes to 20 step “gourmet-professional” recipes.
But today what I really wanted was a good basic cornbread recipe that would be a good accompaniment to the leftover vegetarian chili I had in the freezer.

This recipe is a few twists on the recipe on the back of House Autry Brand Plain yellow cornmeal based on the way I watched my grandmother make cornbread years ago. The only personal change I made was using melted butter instead of vegetable oil (as House Autry ® requires) and melted vegetable shortening (as my Maw Maw did). But any of the three is interchangeable with different but equally delicious results.
To my mind cornbread should be made in an oiled, preheated cast iron skillet. But for those of you who don’t own one, you can use a 8x8x2 metal (or glass) baking pan. Enjoy.