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Food Scene: I ate 10 different types of cornbread dishes just to tell you all about it

Staff Photo by Seth Carpenter / Lyric Lewin, center, sits at the Lodge National Cook-Off judge's table beside her fellow judges during the National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburg on April 25, 2026.
Staff Photo by Seth Carpenter / Lyric Lewin, center, sits at the Lodge National Cook-Off judge's table beside her fellow judges during the National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburg on April 25, 2026. Staff Photo by Seth Carpenter / Lyric Lewin, center, sits at the Lodge National Cook-Off judge's table beside her fellow judges during the National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburg on April 25, 2026.

By Lyric Lewin 9 min read

It’s Friday afternoon, and I’m en route to South Pittsburg for the National Cornbread Festival.

I am, in fact, going to be a judge for the Lodge Cast Iron National Cornbread Cook-off, which is great news for me as a journalist who loves to read and write and learn about food, but also ironic since I have only ever made cornbread using the corn muffin mix from the blue Jiffy box (always topped with butter and honey).

I’ve talked my family into going with me.

“It’ll be fun!” I say to my husband, who has heard me promise things of this nature too many times to believe it. I have also potentially miscommunicated the scope of the cornbread festival to my preschooler, who expects everything at the festival to be made exclusively of cornbread.

On the drive out of Chattanooga, ominous storm clouds hang low over the city, sweeping down from the mountains. Once we make it around Moccasin Bend, the sun comes out, and the wind picks up. It is truly a beautiful drive. I read recently that humans can see more shades of green than any other color, and I believe it. The mountains are absolutely frothy with it, foaming greens of every kind: olive, pistachio, harlequin and moss.