Not Your Mimi's Cornbread

The first time I heard Carl call his grandmother "Mimi" I summoned all composure to suppress a torrent of giggles. I had no reason to laugh, since I grew up calling my grandmother "Bubbie." Still, "Mimi" seemed like an odd term of endearment for one's grandmother, although I couldn't explain why I thought so. Knowing when not to irritate Carl with my condescending Yankee-isms, I saved my giggles for the day I listened to him tell me all the words Southerners have to describe one's urine.

Those with good manners would deem my last sentence inappropriate table talk, but please continue reading.

My Bubbie "cooked" (and I use this word loosely) from boxed mixes she kept on dust-free shelves in her two-bedroom apartment that always smelled like Windex and moth balls. When we ate at the white Formica table in her dining room, my sister and I scanned our food for (a) flecks of tin foil that had escaped the pan to dust our food like specks of mica on dirt (b) errant red press-on fingernails that had enjoyed short-lived lives atop Bubbie's fingers and embedded themselves in the meals we ate.

While I was learning what Sweet'n Low tasted like in mandelbrot (like Tylenol), Carl was watching his grandmother work culinary miracles in the house where she had raised and fed four children.

To this day, everything Mimi cooks inspires my awe. Her date pudding remains my absolute, all-time favorite dessert and I am struggling to give this recipe a vegan makeover in time for Mother's Day, during which I plan to cook and eat the food our mothers and grandmothers passed on to us. I hesitate to tamper too much with date pudding, since the recipe originated with Mimi's mother, who served the dessert each Sunday at the boarding house she ran in Hickory, North Carolina.

For Carl, Mimi's cornbread is the golden foodstuff of legend, and I have only just begun to work my vegan magic on this dish. Carl's initial response to Not Your Mimi's Cornbread?

"It doesn't need butter." Perhaps, the best compliment he has ever paid me.

BTW: We ate Not Your Mimi's Cornbread with a Citrus Avocado Spinach Salad so watch for that recipe later this week. Oh, and I adapted the cornbread recipe from Alex Jamieson's The Great American Detox Diet.

What you need for Not Your Mimi's Cornbread
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup almond milk or soy milk
1 cup thawed frozen corn
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tbsp sliced jalapeno, from a jar
1 serving of vegan egg substitute, whisked
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cast iron skillet

What to do
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Heat olive oil in the skillet on a low flame. Mix dry ingredients, then make a well in the center and fold in wet ingredients. Once mixed, pour the batter into your skillet and bake for 15 minutes.