Pinto beans and cornbread

The chill in the air tonight makes me hungry for my favorite winter comfort foods -- pinto beans and cornbread. Add sides of okra and fresh-sliced tomato and it just doesn't get much better. 

The only problem is the time it takes to make a really good pot of pinto beans. It's a half-day process at best. A whole day, including soak time, is better. I don't have that kind of time right now. Canned beans aren't good for anything except chili. A slow cooker can work, but it's just not the same. I like being home to tend the pot on a cold winter day. 

Better still would be my Granny's pinto beans and cornbread. She spent much of her life making beans on a wood-burning cook stove. Hers were perfect. And she had perfectly-seasoned cast iron skillets for making corn bread. That hot, crusty bread with her homemade butter was truly the best. I can't make it like she did. Of course, I don't use bacon grease or lard. You can't make really great cornbread with canola oil. 

You also can't make good, Appalachian style cornbread if you use too many ingredients. Simple is best. That means no egg, and certainly no sugar. Thrifty Appalachian women would never waste those precious ingredients on an everyday food like cornbread. 

Granny was one of those thrifty farm women. She served pinto beans and cornbread twice a day, every day -- even holidays -- her entire adult life. Those were staple foods.  Great food, but what you had on the table every day, no matter what. 

All my grandparents were East Tennessee farmers. They owned their land and grew almost everything they ate. They may not have had much in the way of cash money, but they always ate well. When you grow your own food, the only limit is a willingness to work hard. 

And time. It takes time to grow, preserve and cook the kind of food I grew up with.

But the first cool day I'm home, there'll be a pot of beans on my stove. You can count on it.