Best Cornmeal, whatever you call them

Chef Bill’s Gluten Free Skillet Bacon Corn Bread

Getting really cool product samples is one of the big perks of seeking out or sourcing new purveyors for my biz. It’s quite a process to source any new products these days especially if you are seeking out wholesale prices with no or at least minimal delivery costs.

One company that I have been intrigued with for a while now is called Marsh Hen Mill, formerly Geechie Boy . If any of y’all have lived or spent a considerable amount time in the South Carolina low country you are undoubtedly familiar with the term, Geechie Boy, generally used to describe a person of African descent (but not always) and usually a poor farmer, who lived on the southern barrier islands of South Carolina and Georgia. On the northern barrier islands these same people were known as Gullah. These islands were originally developed as plantations where corn, rice, field peas and indigo were grown by slave labor. After the Civil War, the plantations fell into disuse and many of the antebellum strains of corn, rice and field peas were sadly forgotten.

Happily, at least from a foodie standpoint, a few strains of these once lost culinary treasures were rediscovered in old fields and farms (one was a former moonshiner) by a few enterprising farmers. One of these men is Glenn Roberts founder of Anson Mills. Another is the founder of Geechie Boy Mill - now renamed Marsh Hen Mill - who bought and restored an old grist mill for the purpose of offering these once lost products.

The mills products I have sampled include three different types of corn meal, one blue, one white, and one yellow flint corn. Yes that’s “flint” as in the same variety of corn the Native Americans grew! How’s that for offering only the highest quality heirloom varieties to my super lucky guests? If you’re not excited by this then just go back to your usual shoemaker quality grocery store stuff and continue to eat the majority of your grub from the drive through. But you are better than that. I am now in the process of making this iron skillet cornbread recipe with the blue corn meal. I’ll let you know how it turns out. And by the way Marsh Hen Mill products are available by mail so you too can enjoy the very best heirloom products around.

Chef Bill’s Gluten Free Skillet Bacon Corn Bread

1.25          cup          fine stoneground cornmeal, heirloom if possible

1.25          cup          GF A/P flour

½               cup          scant sugar

1                Tbs          baking powder

1/3            tsp           salt

1.25          cup          buttermilk

4               oz             butter, melted

2               ea             eggs

1               tsp            xanthan gum (if GF flour doesn’t contain any)

7               oz             raw bacon, small dice

1.        Heat a 10” cast iron skillet in a 400˚ oven.

2.        Cook bacon until crispy, drain.

3.        Sift together the dry ingredients into a large bowl.

4.        Mix the wet ingredients in a separate bowl.

5.        Mix the wet ingredients along with the bacon into the dry ingredients.

6.        Grease the skillet with bacon fat.

7.        Spoon the batter into the skillet, spreading evenly with a spoon.

8.        Bake @400˚ for 20 minutes, or until golden brown and a wooden skewer comes out dry.