From Cosa Bolle in Pentola:
Cornbread is not Italian, and indeed the cover of this little volume has a photo of a slice of cornbread with a square of partially melted butter (butter on bread isn't particularly Italian either), and a little American flag. However, when my review copy arrived wife Elisabetta's eyes lit up, and she immediately began trying the recipes, which are rather nice.

Jeremy Jackson begins with a quick history of cornbread, which (he says) has always been looked askance at by a certain segment of the population that considers it poor folk's food, but that has also always had its defenders, including Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain, who got so tired of Italian food during a trip to Italy that he drew up a list of American foods he craved, which included cornbread. In his history, Mr. Jackson also notes that popcorn was milled into flour during WWII and used to stretch wheat flour in breads, and that popcorn bread was popular enough that its production continued until a crop failure in 1947 caused the price of popcorn to skyrocket. He next discusses the basic ingredients -- cornmeal and corn flour -- and equipment, and then gets to the heart of the matter -- cornbread -- beginning with several basic cornbread recipes followed by a number of suggestions to jazz them up, and continues with all sorts of other things that use cornmeal or flour, and could be called (sometimes with a stretch of the imagination) cornbread, including breakfast muffins, drop biscuits, cornmeal carrot bread, apple skillet flipcake, and a caramel corncake that was his mother's. There are also several recipes that involve popcorn, including Popcorn Focaccia (P. 112):

Popcorn Focaccia (makes 2 small medium pizzas or focaccias)

Who do I think I am? How did I come up with such an idea? Isn't it illegal to put popcorn in anything Italian? Is this perhaps the best recipe in the entire book? If this focaccia fought a normal focaccia, which would win? (This one.) Why aren't there more flatbreads in your life? When are you going to make this? How do those wonderfully big bubbles get into the dough? Who do I think I am?

This focaccia also makes my favorite pizza dough. The only change you might want to make is to reduce the salt to 1 teaspoon or 1 1/4 teaspoons. A baking stone makes for a crusty bread. This bread freezes well -- cut it into sticks before freezing and then pop them in the toaster when you need them.

• One 1/4 ounce packet or 2 1/2 teaspoons active dry or instant yeast
• 2 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour, plus more as needed
• 1 cup popcorn flour (page 22)
• 2 tabespoons olive oil, plus more for bowl
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1. Allow the yeast to dissolve in 1 1/4 cups lukewarm water (110 F) in a mixing bowl. Add 2 cups of the all-purpose flour, the popcorn flour, oil, and salt, and stir vigorously for 3 minutes. Now stir in the remaining 1/2 cup flour, just intil you have a soft but kneadable dough. My dough usually takes a total of 2 1/2 cups flour in the bowl, plus another 1/4 cup while kneading.
2. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead it until it is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes, adding only as much flour as is needed to keap it from sticking to your hands and counter. Drizzle olive oil into a medium bowl and turn the dough in the bowl to coat it with oil. Let the dough rise, covered, until doubled in size, 60 minutes or more. Punch the dough down, turn it over, cover it, and let it rise again until doubled, 30 to 45 minutes.
3. Divide the dough into two equal pieces and put each piece onto a cornmeal-sprinkled pizza peel, largish cutting board, or the backside of a baking sheet (the idea is that the focaccia needs to be able to easily slide off onto the baking stone). Gently poke each piece of dough with the tips of your fingers to flatten it a bit and press some of the air out. At this point, preheat your baking stone in your oven at 450 F. Let the dough rest 10 minutes.
4. Now shape the dough into two rough rectangles (this is a rustic bread -- it shouldn't be perfectly shaped) by poking it with your fingertips and tugging gently if necessary. The end product should be about 1/2 inch thick. Slash the top of each focaccia with 4 or 6 slashes in a grid pattern, but only if you have a very sharp knife or a razor blade -- a dull knife will tear the fragile dough. Cover the dough and let it rise a final time, until puffy, 30 minutes or so.
5. In one swift motion, slide one focaccia onto the hot baking stone and bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until lightly browned, stiff, and hollow sounding when tapped on the bottom. The bake the second focaccia.
6. Serve warm, sliced in long narrow breadsticks.

Additions The focaccia is so fantastic by itself, as an accompaniment to anything Italian, that I never dress it up. Nonetheless, some common additions and/or toppings for focaccia include olives, thyme, sage, oregano, olive oil, rosemary, coarse salt, pepper, parsley, Parmesan cheese, onions, etc. You can knead small amounts of these ingredients into the dough and also sprinkle them on top.

To make popcorn flour, Mr. Jackson starts out with freshly made unsalted popcorn, and blends it, a cup at a time, "until the popcorn resembles a very coarse meal, kind of like instant tapioca powder. Use whatever popcorn flour you need and freeze the remainder in an airtight bag. It keeps well."

Bottm line: Fun and tasty.

Practical things:

The Cornbread Book, A love Story with Recipes

By Jeremy Jackson, 2003

130 pages, including a list of sources for the ingredients.

Published by William Morrow, NY, NY

ISBN 0-06-009679-9

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