"Little House" Cracklin' Cornbread

You may say crackling...I say cracklin'.
What are cracklin's anyway?
Plain, unadulterated pieces of crispy fried pig skin rendered from the lard making process.

So now that we have that all cleared up....
...IT'S THE FIRST FULL DAY OF FALL, Y'ALL!

Recently I shared that I was reading the book Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser. 

Although the book shed a lot of light on many things (and some I would really rather forget),

I was left wanting to know more and more about Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I'd never read her "Little House" books until recently...
I finished them just last week and now I want to read them all over again!

I only became familiar with the fictional Laura when Little House on the Prairie came to TV.
It has been a favorite show since the 70s and I still record and watch them regularly.
I never grow tired of these wonderful stories, even if I do know exactly what's going to happen next.

And the books are even better...how is it even possible that I hadn't read them all these years?
I especially enjoyed reading about all of the wonderful sounding food that Ma cooked daily.

That led me to finding and purchasing The Little House Cookbook.

Now that fall is really in the air, my thoughts go to making soup, specifically chili.
And what goes better with a steaming bowl of chili than cornbread?
So one recipe that sparked my interest right away was the one for Crackling (Cracklin') Cornbread.
I read about this first in Farmer Boy, book #2 in the series,
the story of Laura's own Almanzo Wilder when he was growing up.
This was a favorite thing that his mother made for him and so I decided to try my hand at it.
I am sure the cracklin's back in those day were somewhat different than what we get in stores today.

The ingredients and the recipe...

The recipe calls for stone ground cornmeal but I accidentally got self-rising stone ground...
I really don't think it made much of a difference but probably would not have needed the baking soda.

You add the melted butter to the batter right before placing it in the baking pan.
As you can see, I should have used my larger skillet...it was to.the.top!

I thought it might even out grow the pan...

Nope!

I couldn't wait to try it and I did...just a few minutes out of the oven.

The cracklin's had softened quite a bit but they gave it a really good flavor
and along with the dense, rough texture of the stone ground meal....m-m-m good!
I do believe the next time around I will use the cracklin's from the meat department...
rendered right off the pig, not processed...more authentic for this recipe.
If you are used to a sweet, cakey-like cornbread, this may not be for you though.
It reminded me very much of the cornbread that Mom used to make when I was a little girl...
and I didn't even like it back then...how our tastes can change, right?

So that little morsel that I sampled wasn't quite enough...
...and then a great idea popped into my head!



A couple of weeks ago, a sweet blogging friend sent me a little gift for my birthday...
...a jar of her yummy homemade raspberry jam.
Oh my goodness, can I just tell you what a wonderful combo this was?!
The salty cornbread...the sweetness of those berries...m-m-MMM!

That was yesterday and it was 86 degrees.
Last night, fall paid us a visit...today it hasn't gotten out of the 60s and it's cloudy and damp.
Perfect soup weather, I'd say...wouldn't you?
So here's my chili I just made this afternoon and here's Almanzo's cornbread.
No jam, just butter.

Pardon me while I dig in.

Have a wonderful first week of autumn,
 sweet friends!




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