The Great Jonnycake Debate, Part I: Thick

Now that we have our syrup, it seems the time may be right to have a conversation about that touchy subject, the jonnycake. Not a national conversation--jonnycakes, after all, are native to Rhode Island and so the issue is deeply local—but a political football nevertheless.
The crux of the matter is: thick, or thin? An ocean divides those favoring the one over the other. Or rather, a bay: those who favor thick jonnycakes dwell west of Narragansett Bay (and often put an “h” in the spelling), and those who favor thin dwell on my side of the water, east of Narragansett Bay. In fact, the thick are often called “West of Bay” jonnycakes (sometimes called “South County”), and the thin “East of Bay” (sometimes called “Newport”). The Green Line. The Berlin Wall. The Naragansett Bay. There is no construct more political, or arbitrary, than geography.
I am a good neutral party to referee this debate. After all, I’m originally from New Jersey, and come to the subject with no congenital bias. On coming to Rhode Island, I first lived in West Bay—and my first jonnycakes were, of course, thick—but I now live in the thin country of East Bay. I approach the topic with a diplomat’s knowledge and respect for cultural differences of opinion. I have, as you surely know by now, no opinion of my own. I'm perfectly objective.
Definitions are the foundation of legitimate debate, so we’ll start there. A jonnycake is a pan-fried unleavened cake made from 100% stone-ground Rhode Island white flint cornmeal mixed with water (and/or a bit of milk, depending on allegiance) and a little salt. The real thing contains no sugar, no flour, no flavoring, no fat, no egg. It is the most basic, indeed primitive, of breads, its nourishing preparation yet another gift of the Patuxet Indians to the struggling Pilgrims. The unique bittersweet taste of a jonnycake is the taste of history.
We start with the thick side of the controversy because thick jonnycakes are most likely the closest, perhaps nearly identical, to the ones first tasted by the settlers. They are also somewhat easier for the beginner to make. Jonnycakes may be simplicity itself, but cooking them properly takes a lot of trial-and-error practice to obtain a cake that is fully cooked without being burned, and that will remove from the pan without benefit of a chisel and sledge hammer. Not to scare you from trying your hand, just to let you know that, if your initial batch is ruined, you are not the first. Lower the heat, use a heavier pan, and try again.
A classic but nearly forgotten way to serve thick West of Narragansett Bay jonnycakes is with roast chicken and gravy. Nowadays most people eat them exclusively as breakfast food, with lots of butter and maple syrup, but they make an admirable substitute for potatoes. In fact, my first taste of jonnycakes was as a side to a chicken dinner. A college boyfriend, the late Manny Read, made them for me, as I of course had never heard of them before arriving at URI. I prepared the chicken and gravy to accompany them (told that this was the proper way to eat them), dubious all the while as to the propriety of putting a sort of pancake alongside a chicken, let alone the palatability of any pancake that was to cook for half an hour. To this day, that meal is a vivid taste and personal memory. I suppose you could say it made me a Rhode Islander.
Back then, chicken and jonnycakes could be found on restaurant dinner menus, particularly in Johnston and other towns in the northwestern part of the state. One of my very old Rhode Island cookbooks even has a recipe for something called “Johnston Spanks,” a kind of deep-fried thick jonnycake, to be served with poultry and meat. I am not so sure you could find this dish in a restaurant anymore. But you can make it at home.
Thick West of Narragansett Jonnycakes
West of Bay, cooks generally use Kenyon’s or Carpenter’s cornmeal for their jonnycakes; note however that Kenyon’s has not used white  flint corn for five or more years due to low availability. You can visit Kenyon’s 17^th century grist mill, located near University of Rhode Island in Usquepagh, or Carpenter's water-powered, 18th century grist mill in Perryville near Moonstone Beach. There is controversy about cooking time; I have given both timings, which in many ways depends on just how thick you like to make your jonnycakes and how you control your heat. Makes 8-10 thick cakes.
1 cup stone-ground jonnycake cornmeal
1 cup boiling water and more as needed
½ tea salt
Put the cornmeal into a heatproof bowl and warm it in an oven or microwave. Mix the boiling water into the cornmeal and salt to form a mush; let it stand, covered, for a few minutes. Add 1-4 tablespoons more water (some use milk, I do not) to thin, if necessary, to achieve the consistency of light, smooth mashed potatoes that will fall readily from a spoon. Some modern cooks also add a teaspoon of sugar or molasses, but it alters the divine bitter edge of a true jonnycake that is better offset with syrup or a sweet accompaniment such as chutney or glazed vegetable.
Cooking Option 1
Heat a griddle medium hot and grease generously, preferably with reserved bacon fat or lard. Stir the mush once more, and drop it by tablespoonfuls to make  oval cakes about 3 inches long and ½” thick or more. There should be enough fat that the cakes sizzle gently around the edges. Cook, without disturbing or pressing down, 6 minutes; turn, and cook another 6 minutes. They should be brown and somewhat crusty; depending on your heat, they may be ready to turn (easily, without prodding at all) in a minute or so sooner, but jonnycakes need to be cooked through so that the center is not mushy. It is traditional to make and then discard the first (often burned) trial jonnycake, but once you get the hang of it you won’t have to.

Cooking Option 2
The same except heat your griddle to medium low and cook for 15 minutes each side. This is a more traditional way of cooking them, and is suitable if you like your jonnycakes plump.
As you finish your jonnycakes, put them in a hot oven to puff up a bit and keep warm. Serve with chicken and gravy (or as I do nowadays, pan juices thickened with a little butter), as a base for a sauced dish of meat or seafood, or for breakfast with butter and maple syrup. Maple-glazed carrots are a nice accompaniment to the chicken.


                       

Buckwheat: Warm for the Winter

January in Rhode Island is for settling in and staying warm. To everything there is a season, and in this one, I lose interest in the luxury ingredients, complex menus, and rich preparations that mark the holidays. Like clockwork, I put them away for another year along with the holiday decorations, and begin to crave the cozy satisfaction of simple, homey, rib-sticking New England food.
For me, there is no mealtime so satisfying as breakfast, and none that lends itself so well to the old-fashioned without ever feeling like you want something lighter, trendier, more innovative. It is hard to improve on the idea of a pancake or jonnycake, or to even discuss doing so without sounding a bit silly. By all means, experiment with refining and rarifying dinner, but leave breakfast well enough alone.
An old favorite here in the Northeast is raised buckwheat pancakes. It just tastes like New England, in the same way that jonnycakes—a subject of a series of future posts--taste like Rhode Island. Many old-fashioned New England recipes call for buckwheat because it was widely grown here during the 18^th and 19^th centuries. In the mid-20^th century, however, it largely disappeared from local cultivation. In 1964, the last year for which there are statistics, only 57,000 acres were harvested nationwide, compared with over 1 million just 50 years earlier. One possible reason for this is that buckwheat does not lend itself to “improvement” through plant selection and other breeding techniques; grown primarily without pesticides or herbicides, its principal enemies are deer and other animals, much harder to control. (The upside of this is that when you eat a buckwheat pancake, it may be little changed from the one pioneer women served their families.) Another factor in declined production was likely changing tastes, as bleached white flour took over in mid 20th-century America. In the last 30 years, however, due to increasing demand for health reasons and for uses such as pillow fills, there has been some renewed interest in developing viable buckwheat strains for commercial farming.
Buckwheat is not wheat, not even a grain. It is an herbaceous summer annual, related to rhubarb and sorrel; this means that buckwheat has no gluten, a plus for those with wheat allergies—or those (not me) who have sworn off bread and pasta for the New Year. Some buckwheat is utilized in the form of groats (the crushed, de-hulled kernels); this is the well-known kasha in the tasty Jewish dish, kasha varnitchkes (bow-tie noodles). Buckwheat flour is milled from the hulled triangular seed, and used for noodles (soba), porridge (from a coarser grit), a thickener for gravies and soups, and, of course, pancakes and blini. Buckwheat also is the source of wonderful dark honey (some beekeepers plant it specifically for this reason), which now commands a high price because of the crop’s scarcity.
Nutritionally, buckwheat is the best source of high-quality protein of all plants (better than soybeans), containing all eight essential amino acids. It is also a good source of complex carbohydrates, insoluble fiber, potassium, iron, and B vitamins. Buckwheat has beneficial effects to circulation and may help lower cholesterol and diabetes risk. To benefit from buckwheat’s wholesome profile, be sure your buckwheat is very fresh; buy small quantities and use it as quickly as possible, freezing any extra, because it is high in fat and can go rancid quickly. Also make sure you are buying 100% buckwheat flour, as it is often packed as a mix for pancakes that includes wheat flour.

Rhody-style Buckwheat Pancakes

You may be surprised, from the looks of the batter, how light these are. They have a slightly sweet, slightly nutty taste that is quite unusual. I like the taste of orange with them, and sometimes serve them with my orange-scented fig jam as well as with the tangerine-maple syrup here. Start these the night before; they are traditionally made in a pitcher for pouring out next day. Serves 4.
½ cup Rhode Island jonnycake cornmeal (see sources in left column)
¾ cup boiling water
1 ½ cups buckwheat flour
¼ tea salt
1 cup whole milk, scalded
2 ¼ tea active dry yeast (1 envelope)
¼ cup warm water
1 T molasses
2 T warm water
scant ½ tea baking soda
extra milk if needed
2/3 cup 100% maple syrup
1 tangerine, peeled and sectioned
butter
In a pitcher or medium bowl with a pouring spout, pour the boiling water over the cornmeal and stir to a mush. Add the buckwheat flour, salt, and scalded milk, and beat well with a wooden spoon to incorporate and remove any lumps. Set aside until lukewarm.
Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and add to the flour-cornmeal mixture, stirring well. It will look a bit like wet sand or, truth be told, wet concrete, belying its ultimate texture. Cover, and let sit on the counter in a draft-free place overnight. Next morning, dissolve the baking soda into the water and add with the molasses to the bubbly batter, stirring well to combine; you can add a few tablespoons of milk to thin it if you think it is too thick. (If it looks as if the batter fell after rising, not to worry.)
Heat a griddle to medium heat and grease with butter or shortening. Pour the batter into 4-5”rounds. Do not turn until the tops look relatively dry and you can easily slide the spatula under the full breadth of the pancake, or they will break. Turn only once and finish cooking the other side; they will be nicely brown.
While the pancakes are cooking, put the maple syrup into a small saucepan. Squeeze a few sections of tangerine into the syrup, and drop the rest into the pan. Place over low heat for a few minutes. Butter the pancakes and pour the warm tangerine-maple syrup over them to serve.