How to Make Bean Bread

One delicious traditional American food is bean bread. The old Cherokees of North Carolina loved it and the white men loved it too. Corn meal was basic plantation food, white folks made bland mush every morning but the Inddians figured out something tasty.

You can cook bean bread as a tamale, a loaf or as a pancake. The basic batter is as follows.

1 cup corn meal

1/2 cup flour

2 t. baking powder

1 T sugar

1/4 cup melted butter

1 beaten egg

2 cups milk

2 T. honey

2 cups brown beans (pintos, kidney, black beans) chopped into rough pieces

Mix the wet into the dry then fold in the bean pieces. Cook as a tamale in corn husks or banana leaf, as a loaf in a pan @ 400 degrees or on the grill as a delicious high protein pancake. Serve with butter and maple syrup or honey.