CORN-MEAL PONE

1 qt. Indian [corn] meal
1 tsp. salt
A little lard, melted
Cold water to make a soft dough

Mould with the hands into thin oblong cakes, lay in a well-greased pan, and bake very quickly.

The common way is to mould into oval mounds, higher in the middle than at the ends, shaping these rapidly and lightly with the hands, by tossing this dough over and over. This is done with great dexterity by the Virginia cooks, and this corn-meal pone forms a part of every dinner. It is broken, not cut, and eaten very hot.

From Common Sense in the Household by Marion Harland, New York, 1871

Comment: Ah, the quintessential Southern dish, corn pone. This is just one of a number of breads which must be descended from the very earliest cooked foods of mankind (other than the traditional haunch of mastodon held over the fire by the ankle bone.) Hoe cake, johnnycake, bannock bread, all just ground grain mixed with water enough to hold it together and cooked on a hot rock or even in the ashes of the fire itself. The grain used depends on what is most common or easily obtained in a given area, which in much of America was corn. In the 1800s this was still known in much of the country as "Indian meal" or simply "Indian."

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