Jonny-cake: a recipe

As Velora stirs, I  pour cups and cups of boiling water into the batter.

“Stop!  I think that’s enough.  It’s supposed to be think and plop onto the griddle.”  She adds a bit of milk and spoons the mixture onto three preheated griddles each covered with a generous layer of oil.

I must admit, I’ve never cooked Jonny-Cake either.  The batter looks like an unappetizing serving of mush to me.  Though mandatory as childhood winter breakfasts, those pasty portions of oatmeal or mush never much appealed to me.

Somehow, we manage to serve all the guests.  We even get compliments, though I consider them nothing more than polite necessities.  As always, the cooks eat last.

“Remember, these are not pancakes,” Velora warns as she pours maple syrup over my serving of Jonny-Cake.  I would never mistake this misshapen mass of the lightest yellow for the elegant, thin round of a pancake.

I poke it with a fork.  It is soft, still gooey inside but brown and crusty around the edge.  In my mouth, the combination explodes with taste and texture.  The Jonny-Cake is warm, smooth as custard, crispy as bacon.  All is bathed in the limpid forest taste of maple syrup.

Here’s the Davis family recipe for Jonny-Cake.

1 cup white corn meal

about 2 cups boiling water

1/2 T salt

a little milk

a little sugar if desired

Combine corn meal and salt in a bowl.  Add enough boiling water to reach the consistency of oatmeal.  Add a little milk.  Drop on greased griddle by tablespoons.  This will make 12 Jonny-Cakes. Cook 5 or 6 minutes.  Keep skillet well-greased with corn oil.   

More Jonny-Cake

The Stonington Historical Society has recently reissued The Davis Homestead, a local memoir of life on the farm in lower Pawatuck written by John Davis, Whit Davis’ father.

Originally published in 1986, the book contains accounts of the Davis Farm and the family's history dating back to before the American Revolution.  This memoir is not only a family history but also a major window into our collective early colonial life.  

To celebrate the arrival of the new edition, the Historical Society hosts a morning event at the Palmer House. Whit Davis, a vibrant, white-haired man now in his 80s, is to cook Jonny-Cake using the farm’s flint corn meal.

As so often happens with Whit, he is quickly surrounded by a crowd and absorbed in telling some vivid anecdote.  He moves with the group from the small kitchen to an adjacent parlor.  It seems the cooking assignment for the assembly of fifty will fall to Velora, Whit’s wife ... and myself. 

Before being called to the other room, Whit measured corn meal, salt, and sugar into a large ceramic bowl to make a triple batch.  On a side table, a small electric coffee pot heats water to a boil.

“Remember, Velora, that water must be boiling.” Whit cautions. “That’s what cooks the corn meal.  Frying just crisps up the edges.”

With Whit busy and the Program’s hostess eager to start feeding her hungry crowd, Velora reluctantly begins to mix the batch.

“I’ve never done this before,” she whispers to me in a tone of slight worry and small conspiracy. “I’ve only watched Whit do it.” 

Johnny cake

Several different varieties of modern hybrid sweet corn, first developed in the early 1800s, are available at Stonington’s Farmers Market in August. “Butter and Sugar” with its sprinkling of white kernels and more numerous butttery yellows, is my favorite.  Pure white “Silver Queen” is another local preference.

In Stonington, Indian corn has not been altogether forgotten.  This old style corn is usually thought of as multi-colored and decorative.  But the local variety, called dent of flint corn, is less pleasing to the eye.  The kernels are dun colored and indent along each seed’s axis as it dries.

Two local farms still grow the legendary Pequot maize.  Whit Davis grows a field of flint corn at the Davis Farm in Pawcatuck.  After harvest, the corn is stone ground into corn meal at a local water-powered gristmill.  Whit and his wife Velora sell one-pound bags at the Saturday market.  Each of them wears a red bib apron embossed with white letters: David Farm.  Founded 1643. 

Ground corn saved the Pilgrims at Plymouth during the winter of 1620. Easily prepared and nutritious, ground corn was served up as “journeycake” by both native Indians and Colonials.  The name evolved to “Jonny-Cake” (or johnnycake).  It remains a local speciality.

The spring after their arrival, Squanto taught members of the Plymouth colony to plant flint corn five grains to each planting hill.  “One for the blackbird, one for the crow, one for the cut worm and two to grow.”

Sweet corn cooking customs

On August 4, it’s still 80 degrees at midnight, too hot to sleep inside.  I walk outside to join Buff the Cat, who is asleep on the glider.  Drowned fruit flies accumulate in the dregs of my wine glass; few mosquitoes are about.  The hum of my neighbor’s air conditioner keeps his house at a constant 72 degrees, but I forgo artificial cooling and settle into the comfort of soft pillows.  Buff and I stretch out side by side and surrender to the bliss of sleeping outside.

If heat, humidity, and hurricanes are the downside of August, an abundant stock of fresh food, especially sweet corn, is the upside.  People line up when the first ears appear at Saturday’s Market toward the end of July.  Those ears disappear within minutes.  Only the earliest shoppers get the first corn.  But by early August, Farmers Markets and farm stands have established a reliable supply.

Southern New Englanders cook their corn according to widely divergent local customs.  Some like to grill ears still in their husks, soaked first in a pal of water.  Others assign a reliable family expert to strip husks and carefully remove unwanted silk.  The best cooking method and proper amount of time to cook remain under debate.  

Personally, I prefer a shallow covered saute pan, minimal water and minimal cooking time.  I very briefly roll ears of shucked corn in a thin bath of boiling water.  The process warms the ears rather than cooks them.  Though melted butter is the preferred dressing, I don’t use it.  Butter clouds corn’s fresh taste and leaves an oily layer I find unpleasant.  For me, freshly ground salt and pepper suffice as flavorings.  Two, even three, ears of corn accompany breaded fillets of summer flounder, lemon mayonnaise, and pencil-thin green beans for a summer supper.  

Heat, humidity and a possible hurricane

August in Connecticut means heat, humidity, and possible hurricanes.  The month also brings the season’s most colorful flowers. Gone are the pastel shades of early summer.  August bouquets shout for attention with intense color: cherry red zinnias, flashy orange stems of croscosmia, huge heads of yellow sunflowers, dinner-plate sized dahlias in hot pink and fuchsia, tart plum shades of gladiolus.   

August is also the peak of the vegetable season.  The month brings the largest quantity of vegetables and the greatest assortment of tastes to our Farmers Market. There are mountains of corn, mounds of sweet-acidic tomatoes.  Baskets of shiny purple eggplants, long green zucchinis, pungent heads of garlic, sting bags of red onions ... all are ready to combine with heady basil to become a famous French late summer stew: ratatouille. 

Mid-summer (celebrated on August 1st) is the skewed middle of a bell curve that begins for me in May and ends in October.  because of uncertain coastal weather patterns, our local food and flower supply hang in a precarious balance during this time of year.

If a major storm moves up the coast, our summer season ends abruptly.  Strong winds, heavy rain, high tides --- the combination will put an end to the growing season.  I feel uneasy and fragile during August, this month of overwhelming abundance when uncertainty rules.