Issued Corn Meal

[Cotton Trash]

Gents, I have always been told there is "NO" such thing as a stupid question so here it is.. I have often wondered about the issue of Corn Meal to Confederate troops, I know it was stoned ground but my question is this; Was it yellow or white Corn Meal? Mods if this question is in the wrong folder would you please move and post to the correct one..?



Thanks,
Chad Phillips

[brown]

Re: Issued Corn Meal

"Our food in the Confederate army was of good quality.
Our corn meal that we had was very good; we had generally white, sometimes yellow meal; it was bolted or sifted, and of fine grain.
We never had grains of corn or bits of cob in our meal."

I will say that the very next quote claims corn mill often included ground "hull," and many accounts I have read do claim cob was included. However, you asked about color, not cob.

The quote is from page 70 of this 1865 book.

https://books.google.com/books?id=yec9AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=html_text

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Issued Corn Meal

There is a chapter on corn in either Vol I or Vol II of The Unfinished Fight: Essays on Confederate Material Culture, I don't have my research right in front of me as I am moving (everything is boxed up), but it is in the section called "Eating Like a Confederate." IIRC, the most commonly corn crop grown in the Southern states was called "horse tooth" and it was white. The corn was cut from the ear, boiled into hominy and then dried/ground. There were three basic grinds...samp was the coarsest and was used to make porridge. Finer ground hominy was called "grits" and the finest grind was corn flour. The citations for the sources on this are all in there.

The broader point is not only the color of the corn flour but what they made out of it. It bears no resemblance what-so-ever to the "Yankee" yellow cake type cornbread from a box mixed with milk and egg then baked.

[Cotton Trash]

Re: Issued Corn Meal

Mr. Brown and Mr.Barry thank you for the information on corn meal, Mr. Barry I would be very interested in that book where can one "find" that book?
I grew up in the country in south west Georgia in the county's of Coweta and Heard and as a kid my Dad Always-Always planted a Big garden with everything imaginable to eat and I can remember him planting two types of (white) corn one was "Silver Queen" and it can still be found at local feed and seed stores and the other was "Hastings" this was a type of corn his father, my grandpa planted on their small farm in Barnesville Georgia, Anywhoo I wonder if this type of corn could resemble the "horse tooth" type of corn that was so common.

[brown]

Re: Issued Corn Meal

Hastings Seed Company was a post-ACW business. It was based in Atlanta at one point and in Lovejoy, Georgia, too. They would have likely had several varieties of corn. Lovejoy to Barnesville wouldn't have been a particularly far trip on US 41.

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Issued Corn Meal

Virginia White Horsetooth is an open pollinated dent corn which originated in
the Southern states. It is a very tall leafy variety late in development and found in
temperate regions (like the Southern US) where it is grown primarily as a forage crop.
It is not essential (I would not think) to have that exact variety to duplicate an authentic
CS ration, but rather you could easily grind white hominy grits into flour, then mix it up
with water into a glop and fry it in salt pork renderings. Or make hoe cakes out of it.
Either way you would end up with a pretty good facsimile of a Confederate soldier's meal.

When we cook "rations" out at Stones River battlefield park for CS camp life demos, this is what we do.
Or else make "cush." You can make things interesting with locally foraged produce.

The Unfinished Fight books can be found on Amazon easily enough. Both are still in print. If you find the content useless, just consider it a battlefield preservation donation because that's where the proceeds from the books go.

[rlhardingjr]

Re: Issued Corn Meal

Craig - Just snagged a pair off Amazon. Can't wait to read them.., okay - put them in my library and read them someday...

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Issued Corn Meal

The nice thing about essays is you can jump around and read what interests you at the time, The books are not meant to be read cover to cover in one sitting. You might slip into a catatonic state if you tried it. Some one told me once they were perfect for bathroom reading, I assume based on the brevity of the essays but maybe it was an observation about the subjects or content. You are to be excused if you don't find the minor details like what type of corn was grown as fascinating as I did. Here we are still talking about it, though.

Whatever their merits are or aren't, those two books, The Civil War Musket and The Watchdog column in Civil War News raised over $1500 for battlefield preservation last year (2014). So thank you for buying them and helping with the battlefield preservation efforts in 2015. Things are slowing down and so am I.

[fahtz]

Re: Issued Corn Meal

Corn is near and dear to my heart... If you want to get adventurous this spring, plant some! Here is a nice southern white variety that can work as both feed and white flour. http://www.southernexposure.com/hick...-g-p-1833.html

[Spinster]

Re: Issued Corn Meal

I've found this particular brand to give good result, in both grits and meal. And I use the dry blade on a VitaMix to make corn flour.

I'm told my fondness for yellow corn is indicative of being low class, as white corn was for people, yellow for animals.

Right up the road in Helen, though I don't know what variety they are milling......http://shop.noramill.com/Grits_c2.htm

[Stonewall_Greyfox]

Re: Issued Corn Meal

Maybe we'll get lucky, and Joe Caridi will post some of the anecdotes he's been collecting for the past decade. If memory serves me right, both white and yellow cornmeal were being sold in Richmond for Human Consumption (Ref. Richmond Daily Dispatch - Grocer Ads). As far as issue, the Southern Government was buying up ALL this material in addition to wheat flour particularly in the big cities, which in consequence drove up the prices to the civilian populace, sparking the many 'bread riots'...

Paul B.