The Best Cornbread Casserole

Let me tell you something. Cornbread casserole. Some people call it 'spoonbread.' Some people call it 'corn pudding.' Some people call it 'that yellow thing at Thanksgiving that everybody fights over.' I call it THE GREATEST SIDE DISH IN AMERICAN CULINARY HISTORY. There's been a LOT of side dishes, more side dishes than any single category of food, the side dish industrial complex is HUGE, nobody talks about it, total media blackout.

Now here's how I learned this one. There was an old Southern woman — friend of the family, lived to be 96, sharp as a knife the whole way through, would correct your pronunciation of 'pecan' from across a parking lot — and she cornered me one Christmas and made me promise to do it exactly her way. She made me REPEAT it back. Twice. Could be a coincidence that she lived that long. Probably not. She used Jiffy mix and she did not apologize for it, and neither will I. The mix is good actually. I'll admit it once and never again.

This is the real one. The only one. Accept no substitutes. Corn. Real corn. Creamed corn AND whole-kernel corn. Sour cream — full fat, low-fat is a CRIME against dairy. Eggs. Butter. Real butter, salted, the way God intended. Cheddar on top because we are not COWARDS. You bake it, it puffs up, it turns golden, it smells like a Southern grandma's kitchen mixed with victory, and when you spoon into it, it goes 'fwoomp.' That's the sound of perfection. Fwoomp. Write it down. Plain and simple.

This casserole has saved more Thanksgivings than I can count. People walk in, they see the green bean situation, they see the dry turkey, they see Aunt Linda's 'experimental' sweet potato thing with the marshmallows that have gone WRONG somehow — and then they see this. And the day is saved. The whole day. They'll talk about you at the table. They'll talk about you in the car ride home. They'll talk about you for YEARS. That's the cornbread casserole effect. It's powerful. It's tremendous. It's mine. Save me a piece.