So yeah, pretty much as the title says!! Like I’ve heard of cornbread, but I have no idea what you might serve with it, and wether it’s meant to be a sweet or a savoury… I’m a very big fan of creamed corn… I’m interested in the old fashioned grandma used to make type dishes. I’ve recently learned that marshmallows are cooked with sweet potatoes, but I’m unsure if that then makes it a desert, and also how this is meant to be cooked or served.
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Nabs & potted meat. Solid eastern NC hunting & fishing gourmet dinner. Some assembly required.
Chili is a good one especially in winter. There’s also lots of ways to make it.
I really recommend [feedingspeedy on TikTok](https://www.tiktok.com/@feedingspeedy?_t=8YLGpWsEn78&_r=1). he’s a British guy making American food. he includes some history, walks through the recipes, and gets a lot of good suggestions from Americans in his comments. it’s interesting as an American to see him create dishes we make with ingredients local to him.
Try New England style baked haddock
There’s a zillion recipes for cornbread out there. The sweeter ones use sugar but its never supposed to be that sweet (avoid sugar altogether imo). It’s served as a side like any other piece of bread or dinner roll.
My grandma’s recipe uses almost all cornmeal so its on the crumblier side and cooked in cast iron. All it needs is butter and maybe honey.
Chili and cornbread goes great together.
Could make pies but not much is in season at the moment
Sweet potato pie is always good
BBQ everything
Collard greens and rice
Fried okra
New England, aka “white” clam chowder. [This is a good recipe](https://www.food.com/recipe/ivars-clam-chowder-101699).
Biscuits and Gravy would be a nice dish to try.
I also recommend you check out the YouTube channel Townsends. He showcases traditional colonial cooking using equipment that is correct for the time period; mostly 17th and 18th century recipes.
[America’s Test Kitchen](https://www.americastestkitchen.com/) is an excellent source for very well tested recipes that lean towards the traditional American diet. They have extensive media presence from a show on public television to a magazine to cookbooks. They are one of the building blocks I used in learning to be a better cook.
[Serious Eats](https://www.seriouseats.com/) isn’t exclusively American food, they bring in dishes from around the world, but their food science is top notch. Any recipe there is also heavily tested and can be trusted.
[Alton Brown](https://altonbrown.com/cook/) also does a great job of explaining food science and keeping things relatively simple.
Edited to add: [The Betty Crocker Cookbook](https://www.bettycrocker.com/cookbooks) is a classic American cookbook that most of our grandmas probably had in their kitchen
For regional recipes, magazines are a good resource.
Southern/southeast: [Southern Living](https://www.southernliving.com/recipes) is a great resource as well as [Garden and Gun](https://gardenandgun.com/food/recipes/).
Texas: [Texas Monthly](https://www.texasmonthly.com/category/recipes-2/)
Midwest: [Midwest Living](https://www.midwestliving.com/food/comfort/favorite-comfort-food-recipes/)
Keep in mind some ingredients that are critical to cooking may be hard to find where you live. Cornbread is best when made from recently ground fine yellow cornmeal. If you use some variety of polenta that’s available near you, the result will be dramatically different.
Cornbread can be sweet or savory and it’s a topic of much regional debate. [A “proper” southern cornbread never has a sweetener and is cooked in a cast iron skillet](https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a9486/skillet-cornbread/). However, lots of people love it with a bit of sugar or molasses or honey. There’s also [“spoonbread style” cornbread](https://southernbite.com/sweet-corn-spoonbread/). It’s very personal, you can eat it however you like it. It’s a side item. I like to have a hunk of cornbread with a simple [navy bean and ham soup](https://www.aspicyperspective.com/nanas-epic-navy-bean-ham-bone-soup/) or with a [bowl of chili](https://www.seriouseats.com/pressure-cooker-ground-beef-and-bean-chili).
[Sweet potato casserole](https://www.southernliving.com/recipes/classic-sweet-potato-casserole-with-marshmallows) is very sweet, but it’s typically served as a side dish alongside the main meal, not as a dessert after the meal.
Biscuits and sausage gravy would be a really cool one to learn because biscuits themselves aren’t quite a thing in so much of the world.
Cornbread will be sweet, it’s just the nature of corn, but you shouldn’t add sugar to the recipe. It is pretty common to add some spice with chunks of chili peppers (serrano, jalepeno, chipotle, whatever is regionally available). You can eat it directly with butter, you can use it to make savory//spicy sandwhiches something like arepas or you pour heartier stuff like chili or beans over it.
Some of the BBQ standards would be good, pulled pork in particular is easy to learn because you don’t need access to a grill or smoker to make it.
Red beans, rice and hot sausage with corn bread.
Oh my god cornbread is the fucking best! I love me some cornbread.
The 100% most appropriate thing to have cornbread with is chili like other said. But jambalaya also pairs well, and I would even accept some stews.
So the USA being a giant country of culture diversity ” American Food ” is as diverse as can be . Regional foods vary wildly. You can just start in northeast states and cook your way across the country.
Sweet potatoes with no marshmallows in a circular container: dessert
Sweet potatoes with marshmallows in a rectangular container: not dessert
It’s counterintuitive but that has always been the case in my experience.
In terms of another classic dish, my first thought was meatloaf. I feel like it’s developed a bad reputation as like a bland, cafeteria style food, but if it’s made well it’s awesome.
Corn maque choux. Nothing like cream corn but it does have corn 🙂
It’s a South Louisiana Cajun/Creole/Native American dish. Maque choux is a French bastardization of the original Native American word, kind of like Cajun French for raccoon, chaoui
You should give an open or close faced meatloaf sandwich a try.
Children might enjoy sloppy Joe sandwiches
Hush puppies are God’s food to man
Chicken fried steak with cream gravy!
Chili, jambalaya, meatloaf, mac and cheese… all good stuff. I am gonna make a big pot of jambalaya for christmas eve this year.
[Here is a link with 99 recipes](https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/regional-recipes-from-across-the-country/). It seems to have most anything you may want. I would add pork green chili to the list myself.
Many people do use marshmallows on sweet potato casserole but it not a requirement by any means. It is also served as a side most of the time.
There are a ton of different things you could cook, so I hope you enjoy it and good luck!
Meatloaf, bbq, Mac n cheese, biscuits & gravy are all pretty American
You could try your hand at making [gumbo](https://acadianatable.com/2022/02/28/chicken-smoked-sausage-gumbo/). If that’s not what you’re after, maybe you’d like to try [maque choux](https://www.lafayettetravel.com/listing/corn-maque-choux/3745/).
For a cornbread adjacent meal –
Mixed Greens – Collard, Mustard, Kale, and Turnip greens simmered for hours with some rendered pork fat. Serve warm with a pepper sauce made from hot peppers soaked in vinegar.
Pinto Beans. Also cooked for hours with rendered pork fat.
A carb of choice. Mac and Cheese is a popular choice but also Sweet Potatoes diced and boiled.
Baked Pork Chops.
For Pacific Northwestern cuisine, can’t go wrong with a slab of Chinook or Coho salmon grilled on a cedar plank.