No. 21 - Belize - Here's Johnny Cakes!

This entry is dedicated to all the Johns out there, keeping it real.

Today I thought I’d go wild and cook a typical breakfast instead of dinner for once. This morning the lucky country was Belize. I think that johnny cake is a great name for a flatbread/pancake that thinks its a cake, not to mention, there’s a Sopranos episode entitled Johnny Cakes (poor Vito).  As you can see, there were plenty of (ludacris) reasons for me to want to make them.

Johnny Cakes

A johnny cake, also known as journey cake (because they’re easily transported), is a cornmeal flatbread that originated with the native inhabitants of Northern America. The recipe I decided to follow (kind of) is a johnny cake in its simplest form - for all those johnny cake purists out there. It consists of only four ingredients; cornmeal, salt, sugar and water. None of this modern egg and milk milkarky (sorry, couldn’t help myself). I was planning on eating mine hot with butter and jam, or maybe some honey and sliced banana. Here’s what happened...

Serves 0

My quantities of cornmeal, salt, sugar and water are insignificant, well maybe not, but they’re certainly of no use to you.

There’s no way around it, the johnny cakes just did not work. I put it down to the fact that the cornmeal wasn’t the right kind? No? Truth is, I really don’t know why they failed. Well, ok, the first time I had a notion to add hot water to the cornmeal, for some unknown reason. It went all stiff and gloopy, so I added a few splashes of water (recommended), cold this time to loosen it up. I tried frying them and this is what happened.

Eh ah.

My second attempt, I was more confident would work. I added cold water to the salt, sugar and cornmeal in the specified quantities but it was ridiculously runny, practically like water. So, I kept whisking in cornmeal, a little at a time until it reached the consistency of pancake batter. Alas, when frying them, they cracked? Cracked? God knows.

Now, I’ve no cornmeal left.

For breakfast? A cheese omelette.