My Mama's Cornbread. Smatchoo? eat dat!

My Dad loves to tell us when Mom burns something. We'll usually get some old jokes out of it and some new ones. And since us kids aren't home anymore to get to hear it, he skypes me while holding this cornbread pan (asking me i fI can tell what it is) and then later sends the folowing email:

Forget-Me-Not-Cornbread Recipe

Mix some corn meal with some flour and some eggs and stir until the phone rings. (new joke)Add some salt, butter, baking soda, baking powder, (grease the pan), vegetable oil, a little sweet milk, and a pinch of buttermilk, and some sugar and a spoonful of honey or molasses and a squirt of WD-40.(old joke) (chopped onions optional).Preheat the oven to 4500 degrees. (old joke) Mark down what day it is on your kitchen calendar. (new joke) Open the windows, take the batteries out of the smoke alarm (might be new) and then don't "forget" to take the cornbread out of the oven about 3 or 4 days later, depending on taste...and voila! Forget-Me-Not Cornbread!
I could only take a picture of one below because the others were snatched up by our guests.


And then he proceeded to take pictures and made sure he had a good background color for it and everything.

(there's a piece of cornbread in the middle incinerator. (old joke) When the cornbread turns the same color as the skillet, it's ready). (old joke, but still love it.) Also known as "blackened" cornbread. (sounds familiar, but not for sure)

Remove the cornbread from the skillet for cooling. One story on the origin of Forget-Me-Not Cornbread is that the request was for cornbread sticks, but the cook thought they said "bricks". Probably a rural myth like the hushpuppy story.

Can you find the cornbread in this photo? (Yes. that's right. He keeps going. He goes to get his rocks that he collects. Rocks that he brought home from our family vacation at Lake Powell in the station wagon that already had 6 kids, two trunks on top, magnetic chess sets and a large electronic keyboard. And no, I'm not kidding. But remember, we're making fun of Mom here. not him.)

Fifty percent of the taste is in the presentation. Here we have a vintage piece of Fiesta with a Stanley Chisel, a Wiley Coyote (Looney Tune reference... normal) ACME Pistol Grip Hack Saw and a Tru-Temper Steel handle claw peen hammer with rubber grip. Some prefer the classic wooden mallet with the chisel. And others take the cornbread out to the shop where they make good use of the bench grinder and drill press and vise and 36-inch pipe wrench. Bon appetite, y'all!

Everything you see here, except for the cornbread - came from Flinn's junkyard and probably has been posted on ebay.

And the real story, so that Mom doesn't feel bad...

Actually, Diana and Daniel made some great gumbo a few nights ago and lots of perfect cornbread sticks, but in the excitement of entertaining our neighbors, a few extra sticks/bricks were left in the oven longer than was needed.