Winston chef's hoe cake haute cuisine

On breaks between teaching at Sullivan University or training students at the world-class Winston's Restaurant, chef John Castro strolls on the Farmington plantation next door.

But he never walks alone. In the quiet where 70 slaves once toiled at backbreaking work crushing and twisting 10-feet-tall bundles of hemp into a rope, Castro often feels a nudge.

"There was an energy and it would let you know it was not necessarily positive," he said. "There were obviously people who had not necessarily had a good life there."

To honor that misery, Castro researched the most common slave snack at one of Louisville's largest former plantations. That meal began with a ball of wet salted cornmeal shoved into a pocket before work in the fields. To eat, slaves stuck their iron hoe into a fire until it was red hot. Next came the corn mush, hand-patted into a small disc one-quarter inch thick. With a little grease, that "hoe cake" sizzled and blackened in spots for about a minute on each side.

article continues & recipes here

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/life/food/2015/08/04/winston-chefs-hoe-cake-cuisine/31117853/

t.b. - versatile corn breads, corn pones
I like southern hot water cornbread, corn rotis,
to pupusa with loroco & arepas
I will have to experiment with the recipes in the article.