h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You're right, it's far from being a daily breakfast. I have it as an occasional treat - apart from anything else, it takes a good hour or so to enjoy it properly, so I rarely have time.

In these parts we don't go in for hash browns or bubble & squeaky things. We add extra A23502908 and A3870380.

The frying of the bread is deceptively difficult. I don't object too much if it's toasted, because I'd rather that than a soggy, fat-soaked, badly fried slice! And when the egg yolk's all over it it'll be grand, anyway.

Getting hungry now!

Agreed regards the difficulty of the good* frying of bread; One cheating method I found was to get the bread, slice it, spray it with olive oil spray (guess it'd work with other oil sprays, or just carefully getting it on evenly some other way); and do them on a george forman... seriously... kinda more healthy option too I guess as it doesn't require anything like as much oil/fat Mmm and now I'm hungry!

I the Irish sodabread, and its on my list of breads to try and make... actually I've not a clue how you make it so I probably oughta read that* article through in case there are any clues

Oo and the guide entry does explain how to make it... err waht is butter milk? I might try making it next week if I can find butter milk at the supermarket....

You people are amazing. The world cooks...

Ahem. 'Corn' in US English=maize. What we call 'cornbread' is made of what we call 'corn meal', not flour.

To do it gluten-free, use rice flour, or some such, instead of wheat flour (you only add a little bit, anyway). And make your rising agent out of cream of tartar and baking soda, to make gluten-free baking powder.

Not like tortillas, because it rises. I like mine baked with a crust, not like those wimpy northerners. Who said 'corn muffins'? That's what the stuff is. Sugar, yuck.

But you don't have to go to Tennessee or North Carolina for it. I used to bake it for Romanian potluck suppers in Germany, and although the Germans wouldn't touch the stuff, the Romanians claimed it was like grandma's.

I have trouble believing there's no buttermilk over there. How do you bake a chocolate cake without buttermilk? We learned how to make butter and buttermilk in second grade - it took the whole class and a Mason jar full of fresh cow's milk.

Anyhow, here's more about it:

http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/cheese/buttermilk.htm

I've heard* of butter milk before, but never seen it or used it

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I go to Germany for the

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cook everything in one big frying pan, one after another,lastly wet your bread and pop it into the pan, all the black crunchy bits should stick to it and it should soak up all the lard out of the pan and end up nice and crispy

I'm not fond of anything made of cornmeal - to say it with Dmitri: I won't touch the stuff. If that is typically German, then so be it.

The Germans used to offend the Romanians by claiming that everything the Romanians (and I) ate was 'horse food'.

Beans of all kinds. Maize, mamaliga, all stuff with maize in. Okra, etc. Poor folks' food.

You know what happened in 1945 when the Germans asked people in the US to 'send corn', don't you?

Beans were very popular where I grew up. I guess corn meal just didn't exist in our shops, or else we'd have had it if it was cheap.

Tortilla (the Spanish kind) I make this with onions and potatoes. I usually make it the night before, and take it sliced to eat cold on a picnic.

RF

my parents and grandparents told me about eating white bread made of corn during the wheat shortages of WWII and some of the following years. since there was nothing else they ate it - but never loved it

this was in the northern part of germany by the way

but of course everybody loves hot s with cold butter

or with hot butter

Uggh, Taff, that sounds unhealthy.

Pierce, my parents never mentioned that, but then maybe they ate rye bread?

Dmitri, that is so interesting about southern corn bread and the Romanians. If I get a chance I'll have to show my recipe to my Romanian friends here and see what they say.
There is nothing so satisfying as a big chunk of hot, crusty cornbread with a bit of butter on it! I lived on that and cabbage all through graduate school.

As for buttermilk, it has many advantages for those of us who do not drink cow's milk, but need some non-soy milk to cook with. (I'm lactose intolerant and hate the taste of "sweet milk" as we call it.)
Not only does buttermilk give much more body and flavor to anything (scrambled eggs, biscuits, etc...), but it keeps a long time in the fridge. Even the rather inefficient refrigerator I have in my apartment at my summer job will keep a quart of buttermilk for almost a month before it spoils. Try that with sweet milk!
My favorite buttermilk is from an Ohio dairy called "Toft's". It's about 3.75 % milk fat and a lovely beige color.

Then it's completely different from what goes as "Buttermilch" here in Germany. You can't cook with that - it would curdle. It is white and very low fat. Comes jazzed up with fruit flavours to drink. It consists mainly of whey, I think.

German buttermilk is a leftover from the butter production. It doesn't contain any fat (that's all in the butter, after all), and it tastes slightly sour. It is a very refreshing drink in summer.
You can add it for baking bread when you want a lightly sour taste but don't use sour dough.

The jazzed-up one TC mentions is horrible stuff.

cold buttermilk mixed with egg yolk, sugar and vanilla is a traditional danish summer dessert, usually served with a kind of sweet crackers or rusks crushed and sprinkled over it

also nice when poured over a bowl of fresh and the like

i don't use egg yolk in it any more, see no reason for it, but a few against

My mum used to mix egg yolk and sugar in a bowl, the pour heated buttermilk on it and mix it all. We had that as soup together with curd dumplings for lunch.