Cracklin’ Bread

In 1928, a connoisseur of traditional southern cookery remarked, “when cracklin’ bread was recently served to members of a Columbia, South Carolina, luncheon club, some said it was the first they had tasted in years.” It stood foremost in this man’s estimation of the old dishes “fit for the gods” that used to grace the region’s dining tables: “rice bread, hopping john, hoe cake, batter bread [spoonbread], turnip soup, pot-liquor, rice pilau, tomato and okra soup, sally lunn, corn-starch pudding, trifle, marble cake, stickies, hard ginger cake.”