Just-Moxie
Garden Addicted
I have baked with the coarse stone ground corn meal now since 1979. It had body. It gave cornbread character, allowed the baking soda to rise the bread, it provided a delicious base to soak up the broths and soups and chilis.
Now...what is this stuff they sell? It is so finely ground that it resembles regular flour, or maybe even cake flour!
It is useless for making good cornbread! I have been experimenting with it now for probably 2 years. The cornbread turns out rubbery. Blech 
I cannot find the real coarse stone ground cornmeal any more on the supermarket shelves. It is all -Self Rising, or the fine ground stuff. I stopped by a Publix the other day, and looked on their shelves. The nice young man directed me to their tiny 3 cup package of -polenta. It is similar, but a bit more coarse. I bought one to use on the tamale pie I made. Good enough, but makes too much. And, for the amount of cornmeal I used to use....too expensive.
It seems like the corn meal producers have gone to marketing the old fashioned grind as "gourmet" (?)
I have even looked online-of course. As well as local. All packaged in itty bitty bags...for exorbitant amounts of $$$$.
I wonder if the GMO corn is grinding differently than the older varieties...non-GMO.
As it is, when I do have to use the newer grind varieties of corn meal ...I have to measure VERY CAREFULLY. Tablespoon by tablespoon, into the one cup measure. Even then, the results are only slightly less rubbery.
The chickens eat it up of course.
Has anyone else noticed this difference in their cornmeal the past 2 years?
Now...what is this stuff they sell? It is so finely ground that it resembles regular flour, or maybe even cake flour!
It is useless for making good cornbread! I have been experimenting with it now for probably 2 years. The cornbread turns out rubbery. Blech I cannot find the real coarse stone ground cornmeal any more on the supermarket shelves. It is all -Self Rising, or the fine ground stuff. I stopped by a Publix the other day, and looked on their shelves. The nice young man directed me to their tiny 3 cup package of -polenta. It is similar, but a bit more coarse. I bought one to use on the tamale pie I made. Good enough, but makes too much. And, for the amount of cornmeal I used to use....too expensive.
It seems like the corn meal producers have gone to marketing the old fashioned grind as "gourmet" (?)
I have even looked online-of course. As well as local. All packaged in itty bitty bags...for exorbitant amounts of $$$$.
I wonder if the GMO corn is grinding differently than the older varieties...non-GMO.
As it is, when I do have to use the newer grind varieties of corn meal ...I have to measure VERY CAREFULLY. Tablespoon by tablespoon, into the one cup measure. Even then, the results are only slightly less rubbery.
The chickens eat it up of course.
Has anyone else noticed this difference in their cornmeal the past 2 years?
