Allow 1/2 cup of corn-meal for each person, and to every 4 cups of meal add 1 teaspoonful of salt, mix well; then pour water, which is _boiling hard_, gradually into the meal, stirring constantly to avoid having any lumps. When the consistency is like soft mush, have ready a frying-pan almost full of _hot_ drippings or lard, dip your hands into cold water to enable you to handle the hot dough, and, taking up enough corn-meal dough to make a _large_-sized biscuit, pat it in your hands into a 3/4-inch-thick cake and gently drop it into the hot fat; immediately make another cake, drop it into the fat, and continue until the frying-pan is full. As soon as one johnny-cake browns on the lower side turn it over, remove each cake from the fat as soon as done, and serve as they cook.
Corn-meal must be thoroughly scalded with boiling water when making any kind of corn bread in order to have the bread soft and not dry and "chaffy."
For baked corn bread add 2 full teaspoons of baking-powder and stir in 2 eggs, after 4 cups of meal and 1 teaspoonful of salt have been thoroughly scalded and allowed to cool a little. Pour this corn-meal dough into a pan which has been generously greased, and bake.
Corn-meal needs a hot oven and takes longer to bake than wheat-flour biscuits.
Corn-meal mush does not absolutely require fresh cream or milk when served. It is good eaten with butter and very nourishing. Many like it with maple-syrup or common molasses.
Time is required to make well-cooked mush; at least one hour will be necessary. To 2 quarts of boiling, bubbling water add 1 teaspoonful of salt, and very slowly, little by little, add 2 cups of corn-meal, stirring constantly and not allowing the water to cease boiling. Do not stop stirring until the mush has cooked about ten minutes. It may then be placed higher up from the fire, where it will not scorch, and _boiling_ water added from time to time as needed to keep the mush of right consistency. The cold mush may be made into a tempting dish, if sliced 1/2-inch thick and fried brown in pork fat. Many cold cooked cereals can be treated in the same way; sprinkled with flour these will brown better.
Kentucky bread is made of flour, salt, and water. It is generally known as beaten biscuit. Mix 2 scant teaspoonfuls of salt with 1 quart of flour, add enough cold water to make a _stiff_, smooth dough and knead, pull, and pound the dough until it blisters; the longer it is worked and beaten the better. Roll out very thin, cut round or into squares and bake. These biscuits may be quickly made, are simple and wholesome.