Cornbread did not really start as a Greek food. There are many varieties of Cornbread that exist in today's world, but in the 1930's, this version of Bobota was the one my father in law grew up with in Messinia in Peloponnesos. For some, Bobota may be a painful recollection, and for others, it is a fond memory. For us, Bobota is a learning experience, a story-telling experience, and a Lent-appropriate food that we can add to our list of foods to make!
We were looking for a quick bread to make. Since there are 35 days left in Great Lent, we wanted something different. As much as we enjoy our Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes book, we wanted something else. As we scoured through cookbooks and through the Internet, scanning recipes to see if they had milk, egg, or some other non-Lenten ingredient. Then, we were reading the recipes with soy, tofu, and tempeh, but realized that these are not products we really want to use, nor do we have on hand. So, what should we make?
Then, it occurred to us that there are several recipes for cornbread that do not involve much more than corn meal and water. Of course, that would give us polenta, which we like very much, but we wanted something more solid. Then, we found Bobota. It did not sound like a Greek dish, nor did it sound like something we have had, but it looked easy and interesting, and we are delighted to know a little more about it now, from the Internet, and surprisingly, from a Koumbaro!
Let's start with the explanation from the Internet, then, we will tell you the story that a very dear, older Koumbaro gave us:
From About.com:
In Greek: μπομπότα, pronounced bo-BOH-tah
Depending on the region of Greece and local customs, the word bobota can mean anything from cornmeal to any bread or polenta-type dish made with cornmeal. Cornmeal recipes were very popular during times of hardship, and bobota is considered by many to be a "peasant" dish. This basic recipe has a little sugar, but has no flour, milk, eggs, or butter. It gets a delightful shot of flavor from fresh orange juice and produces a dense, crumbly cornbread.
If you want to make this yourself, it is easy and worth the five minutes to put it together. Although it does take almost an hour to bake, the end result, when warm, is something worth repeating!
For this recipe, you will need the following:
2 cups corn meal
1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
4-5 TBSP orange juice
1/4 cup oil
approximately 1 cup warm water
You will want two separate mixing bowls -- one for the dry ingredients, one for the wet ingredients. Make sure that the bowls are large enough for all the ingredients together.
In the first bowl, mix the wet ingredients. Mix the orange juice, oil, and most of the water together. You want to reserve a bit of the water because you may not need it, but you may need more.
Then, mix the dry ingredients in a different bowl. Mix the corn meal, the baking powder, and the sugar. Make sure that all the ingredients are well distributed.
Then, simply add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix. You should have a wet, pastey batter. Adjust the amount of water as you need to make sure that the very thick batter will almost pour into the greased 9-inch pie pan or baking dish. Spread the batter evenly around the baking dish and make the top as smooth as you can.
Traditional ways will have you bake this is a greased pie pan. We used a small glass baking dish, which worked out okay. Whatever baking pan you choose, you want to make sure that it is shallow. Bobota is not a fluffy, leavened bread that will rise; it is a flat, dense cake-like bread, so you need to have a shallow pan to make sure to achieve that. Bake this at 350° F (about 175º C) for 45 - 60 minutes.
You will know that the Bobota is done baking when it is firm and dry in the middle. You can check this by pressing on it with your hand, or by inserting a toothpick as you would with a cake.
One Koumbaro was telling us how much he liked this Bobota. For him, eating this took him back to his childhood, when his family could not afford too much. He had an aunt who would make Bobota every week, and give a small piece to each child in the family as a treat. If the children were not there for the day Theia made the Bobota, they did not get a piece until the next day. The problem with that is that by the second day, this bread was so hard and crumbly that nobody wanted to eat it -- especially the children. Often, this would create a scuffle with all the children to get to the front of the line to make sure they got a warm, fresh piece of Bobota. And, as Koumbaro tells the story (complete with hand gestures), as soon as he got his piece, he would run away from the group of kids and eat the whole piece all at once -- "Pop! In the mouth," which is the only way that he liked it. He told us that some of the others would eat a little at a time, trying to savour their "special treat" as long as they could. Koumbaro was not that kind of a child, nor is he that kind of adult. As he lovingly told this story, Koumbaro would take a moment and, "Pop! In the mouth," as he spoke. This was endearing and really added to the story.
We did serve this warm, about 10 minutes out of the oven. Koumbaro loved it. We liked it. We liked Koumbaro's story even more, and knowing his experience, we will likely repeat the story for others when we make this again. We will make this again, but in an even smaller quantity. We found that if Bobota is not fresh, it's not edible. On the first day we baked it and cut it, it was crumbly. But, on the second day of having the Bobota, the bread became rock hard and crumbly, we could not even cut a proper piece -- it just fell apart.
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| Please note how crumbly the Greek corn bread (bobota) is. It was certainly not easy to cut into straight pieces because it is not a particularly moist bread. It is, however, a tasty bread that can be used to dip into a soup or a Lenten sauce. In fact, one of our relatives mentioned that the texture that this recipe produces would be suitable as an alternative to a dumpling when eating it in a hot soup. |
"If you begin to guard wealth it will not be yours. But if you begin to distribute it, you will
not lose it."
(St. Basil the Great, Conversations, 7)
(St. Basil the Great, Conversations, 7)
Source of quote: http://orthodox.cn/patristics/300sayings_en.htm
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