Malinda Russell’s A Domestic Cook Book, published in Paw Paw, MI in 1866 is the oldest known cookbook by an African American woman. A free woman of color from Tennessee who had moved to Michigan to escape violence during the Civil War, Malinda Russell wrote her cookbook in hopes of raising money to return to Tennessee and reclaim her property. You can read more about Russell and her cookbook in these blog posts.
Over my years of curating the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive (JBLCA), I’ve spoken and written about this cookbook frequently, and I helped to bring to fruition the University of Michigan Press’ 2025 edition of A Domestic Cook Book. However, I had never actually prepared any of the recipes. After giving a talk about Malinda Russell at the Michigan Local History Conference last week, I decided it was time to change this. Since I had a busy week ahead, I decided to start with something as easy as possible:
Indian Meal Batter Bread
One quart Indian meal, half pint flour, three eggs, two tablespoons melted lard, one cup and a half of sour milk, half cup hot water, one teaspoon soda; stir well together, bake in a quick oven
This cornbread recipe shows Malinda’s origins in the American South in the absence of sugar and the smaller amount of wheat flour than found in many (though not all) Northern recipes. It is also a very frugal recipe, using a very small amount of fat. The amount of baking soda is also notably small, resulting in a very dense bread.
Indian Meal Batter Bread
Note: Halved and in modern measurements
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2 cups corn meal
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1/2 cup flour
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1 egg + 1 yolk
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1 T. melted lard
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¾ c. sour milk
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¼ hot water
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½ t. Baking soda.
Mix the corn meal, flour, and baking soda together in a mixing bowl. Separately, combine the milk, eggs, hot water, and melted lard. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and mix until just combined. Pour into an 8 inch square pan and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes.
I’m usually a devotee of Joy of Cooking’s Northern Cornbread recipe, with generous additions of wheat flour, sugar, oil, and baking powder. Malinda Russell's recipe produced something quite different from my usual “corn cake” (as perhaps it should be called instead of corn bread!) However, fresh from the oven, I can see it being a tasty complement to soups, stews, or pots of beans. It also seemed like it would go well with honey, and in a spirit of experimentation, I slathered one slice with margarine and drizzled it with maple syrup (perhaps a commodity that Malinda Russell would have embraced, living in a Michigan lumber town like Paw Paw). I tried one bite for the sake of documentation and before I knew it, I had devoured the whole slice. The dense crispness of the cornbread went beautifully with the fat in the margarine and the added flavor of the syrup. Almost like cornmeal pancakes!
