Organic Stone-Ground Cornmeal

Welcome to our selection of stone-ground  USDA certified organic cornmeal.  Our organic cornmeal comes in coarse or fine grinds Our roasted cornmeal contains corn that has been roasted in a brick oven. It is milled from organic white, yellow, blue or red corn. Your order is a milled freshly upon fulfillment. This freshly ground product tastes like none other. Our cornmeal is a whole-grain product. It is also vegan. All of these qualities make our cornmeal completely different from the stuff you find in the supermarket.

If you haven't had freshly baked scratch cornbread from freshly ground cornmeal baked in a cast-iron skillet, I could argue you haven't had the real thing.

Cornmeal is the unsung hero of American cuisine.

What is stone-ground cornmeal? It is simply cornmeal that is ground on a stone-burr mill. Stone-burr mills provide a superior milled product compared to conventional high speed mills. The dense mass of Balfour granite of the grinding stones keeps the  temperature of the grist low. Since oxidation is the first enemy of freshness, Low milling temperatures provide a superior product, since heat speeds up oxidation.

Additionally, we grind to order. The second enemy of freshness is time. Who knows how long your average bag of cornmeal has been sitting on the grocery store shelf, regardless of how it was milled?

Cornmeal can serve many purposes. Fine cornmeal makes a great and simple pancake, otherwise known as a hoecake, although fine cornmeal makes great cornbread also.

Blended with a little wheat four (or substitute), the potential expands. Cookies (or pizelles) are delicious and well within the skill difficulty of the average home chef.

Use as a base for hushpuppies,as a dredge for chops, fish, fried green tomatoes, chicken, as a peel for loaves and pizza, Our cornmeal is the stuff you need for that.

Some more thoughts about cornmeal

Cornmeal has been the unsung hero of so many kitchen tasks and specialties for so long, it hurts sometimes when I think of how grits have so completely eclipsed this versatile and indispensable product.

Click here for a link to my cornbread recipes, here for a hoecake recipe, and here for a cookie recipe.

Technically speaking, even grits are "meal," but use caution if you switch around these products in recipes. Even the Italian cousin of grits, polenta, is often a bit coarser in grind than coarse cornmeal, and that can alter the trajectory of your dishes significantly.

It's All About Texture

To be clear, I am talking about field corn products here. In this case organic, stone ground corn. Field corn ripens and dries out in the field and it never has the sweetness of sweet corn on the cob.

Any grist mill grinding corn will be making cornmeal at some point. That's just the way corn behaves when it is ground in a mill. There are several ways to sort out all of the various grades of products in a grist mill, but the very simplest way is to use screens of varying fineness. 

Coarse cornmeal has a high amount of semolina-sized corn particles (tiny grits, actually, since semolina is made from durum wheat) mixed in with the more floury parts of the ground up corn kernels. It is positively the best thing for cornbread, spoonbread, dredging for frying, hushpuppies, pizza peels, coo-coo, and cornmeal mush by many other names..

Fine cornmeal can be used for many of the above dishes, but it really shines when used for hoecakes (also called johnnycakes). It lacks the preponderance of small, hard grits that gives coarse cornmeal its texture.

So if cooking from scratch is your thing, try your hand at some of these dishes today. You may find yourself wondering why more home chefs haven't gone to the trouble to incorporate cornmeal into their arsenal of gourmet ingredients.