When Southerners talk about cornbread, they’re really talking about where they come from. More specifically, they’re talking about the people they come from.
You might think the differences in cornbread are marginal, the list of ingredients often identical. Yet the preparation, the kind of pan used, the type of fat, whether leftovers are crumbled into sweet buttermilk for days after until it is all gone, as my family did: They all tell a story about someone’s table and, quietly, something about his or her life.
Recipe: Skillet Cornbread
If there was one person whose cornbread told you about his life, and his table, it was Pableaux Johnson, photographer, writer and keeper of ties. Like many folks, specifically those he referred to as “my people” — the community he built across the globe — I called Pableaux a dear friend, in my case for over 15 years. I am honored to say I’ve made this cornbread with him many times, in many places, for groups large and small, over the span of those years. He and I were reminiscing about those times recently, on a sunny Saturday in New Orleans, as we talked about possibly publishing his recipe here in this column. It was the week after a great snow fell in the city where both of our hearts found a kind of love and acceptance they needed. The next day, Pableaux was gone. He collapsed doing what he loved: photographing a second-line parade, as he did every Sunday he could. Quite suddenly, this recipe became a memorial.
I know cornbread can just be cornbread, but Pableaux’s recipe was love actualized.
This cornbread comes to us from one Achille Leon Hebert, Pableaux’s Cajun maternal grandfather, of Baton Rouge, La. It is not altogether too different from mine, really, just a little flour added, oil instead of butter, slight differences in the bake time. We each made ours in hot cast-iron skillets and celebrated good cornmeal and buttermilk. We didn’t have any tricks, just a geeky dedication to those two ingredients. Every Monday that he was in his beloved New Orleans home, Pableaux would serve this around his grandmother’s table, along with his red beans and rice. He also served it during his traveling road show. If you ever got to attend one of these dinners, it was easy to understand how one person could build a whole community of people around one unchanging menu.
You would arrive at Pableaux’s house, and the red beans and rice would be ready and waiting. The table would be modestly set, and the cornbread would still be baking, nearly every time. This was a little exposition. Southerners like to pull you in with your nose first, give you a reason to step off the porch into the house.
We all loved to watch Pableaux pull the pan out of the oven, loosen its edges just a bit and then, with humble aplomb, flip his cornbread and butter and salt it generously, serving it bottom side up to share all the toasted flavor with his eager guests. The list of diners was ever-changing, and every time you attended, you would invariably meet strangers who became friends. It seemed to be the goal — to get his people around his table so they could become one another’s people, too. That was the real magic of this meal — and it was Pableaux distilled, a way of seeing what he most dedicated himself to during his full but too-short life.
I know cornbread can just be cornbread, but Pableaux’s recipe was love actualized. Of course, it had strong practice and great technique, but it was also full of good intention and generosity from his bright, beautiful, seemingly boundless spirit. His cornbread became yours, almost a communion welcoming you in as part of his tribe. And as you sat across from him at that hallowed table, ready to tuck in, he would pass you the pan, seeming to be asking, “Where’s ya home?” and responding, “Right here for now,” all at once.
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