I made an infrequent visit to Facebook recently, jumping from friend to friend to see what’s up in their lives. That’s when I came upon a post asking what dishes they’d leave off their Thanksgiving buffet.
I was blown away with how many people checked the “corn pudding” box. Some didn’t even know what it was, but I think those must have been people who aren’t from the South.
Corn pudding has been on my Thanksgiving menu since I left home for a home of my own and brought the tradition with me into adulthood. I can thank the generations before me who knew that Thanksgiving wasn’t a day of thanks unless corn pudding was one of the side dishes.
Wikipedia says corn pudding is a dish typically used as a food staple in rural communities around the South, especially in Appalachia. My mother’s people came from the mountains around Northeast Tennessee, so maybe that’s why it was always on our table at Thanksgiving or, really, most any time of year. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, corn pudding has also been called puddin’ corn – nothin’ wrong with that – and – this is a good one – hoppy glop. Who knew?
My mother made a traditional corn pudding, the kind that has lots of eggs, some cornmeal and creamed corn. Sometimes she’d add sour cream for extra richness.