Why the most divisive cornbread in NC barbecue is never leaving the menu

The cornbread at Sam Jones’ BBQ comes with a warning, but not an apology.

A sign by the register says “Get Cornbreducated,” advising diners that the cornbread is a little different here — maybe a lot different.

Instead of the tall and fluffy, somewhat sweetened version, the Sam Jones cornbread is about a half-inch thick, made of only cornmeal, salt and water. It’s oven fried on a sheet pan slicked with lard, creating a cornbread that’s dense and chewy, with firm crispy edges and dapples of golden brown. It has no crumb to crumble.

This controversial cornbread is the most divisive bite at Sam Jones BBQ and its not going anywhere — ever.

“You either love it or hate it,” Sam Jones told The News & Observer. “But just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean it’s bad. Somebody’s eating it. We don’t see too much of it in the trash can.”

Basically, take it or leave it. But we happen to love it.

The cornbread at Sam Jones BBQ is actually the cornbread from Skylight Inn, the famed whole hog barbecue restaurant in Ayden founded by Sam’s grandfather Pete Jones, dating back to 1947. For many years the only thing Skylight served was the Jones family tray: a paper boat of slaw and chopped pork topped with a square of cornbread.

“It’s been here longer than I have,” said Jones, understating reality by several decades. “It might as well be the holy damn trinity — barbecue, slaw and cornbread on top. If you think about Skylight, if you Google it, you’re going to see a tray of barbecue with cornbread.”

Cornbread isn’t the foundation of barbecue, but it’s certainly a cornerstone, beloved and cherished and often the only bread option on a menu of smoked pork, slaw and beans.

The Skylight and Sam Jones cornbread calls back to a much earlier time, more than a century ago when self-rising wheat flour might be too expensive or too hard to get.

“It was corn ground with a damn rock and mixed with water and a little salt so you could get it down,” Jones said.

‘The caviar of barbecue cornbread’

For many years, Skylight sourced its cornmeal from a Lenoir County mill that dates back to the Civil War and possibly the Revolutionary War, until the mill was shut down after Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

“Things were different back then,” said Bryan King, the fifth-generation owner of Lakeside Mills, which once supplied Skylight’s cornmeal. “If you go to Skylight Inn, I’m betting you you’re eating the same cornbread that was made back in (Jones’) ancestors’ time. That’s what they could get. It goes back to the availability of resources.

“In those days you had a grist mill in every county,” King said. “When you step into Skylight, you’re stepping into history.”

King argued that preferred flavor and textures tend toward the familiar, that even luxury foods aren’t universally beloved.

“Not everyone likes caviar,” King said. “This is the caviar of barbecue cornbread. There’s an acquired taste and appreciation.”

If you don’t like it, don’t order it

Jones said he doesn’t read the online reviews, but nevertheless can recall a few off the top of his head. He’s heard his cornbread compared to roofing shingles, he’s heard people say it tastes like the Civil War, or perhaps best enjoyed next to a campfire in the 1800s.

On Yelp, amid praise for the barbecue and collard greens, some said the cornbread “had no taste whatsoever,” or “could’ve been used as a door stop it was so tough,” or called “a hockey puck.”

“Which is why we put a sweet potato muffin on the menu,” Jones said. “In other words, if you don’t like it, don’t order it, but don’t talk (stuff) about it. ... We’ve been serving that cornbread for a long time.”

It isn’t easy for Jones to pinpoint how he feels about the cornbread, a bite he’s known all his life. It’s neither like nor love, it simply is. It’s his idea of cornbread just the same as Jones is his idea of a name.

Jones said he always orders a corner piece of cornbread, where the edges get particularly crispy, and he tops every bite with a forkful of sweet slaw. He’s seen people use the cornbread to make a small barbecue sandwich, or douse each bite with a squirt of tangy, vinegary sauce.

Food memories depend on much more than what’s on the plate, Jones argued, saying Skylight’s barbecue is partially seasoned by the sounds of tires rolling over crushed gravel in the parking lot, and cleavers chopping pork in the kitchen.

Jones offered a non-barbecue example, telling a story about his favorite hot dogs in the world, which he’d get when riding with his grandfather into town to get truck parts.

“On the way back we’d stop and get hot dogs at the Dairy Palace (in little Washington), eat them on the truck’s blazing hot vinyl seats, with an ice cream,” Jones said. “Having worked in restaurants all my life, I know it’s the cheapest bun, the cheapest frank and the cheapest condiments, but that’s my favorite hot dog in the world. I know it’s not the best in the world, but it’s the experience, not so much what’s in the hand.”

Cornbread that’s a banner of honor

Plenty of online reviews embrace the cornbread, calling it “old fashioned” or “traditional,” comparing its rich corn flavor to that of arepas and polenta.

On the Sam Jones website, the restaurant encourages the cornbread to be eaten within a few hours, saying it’s best served fresh before it firms up too much.

Jones said the sweet potato muffin was the one concession he’s willing to make to the controversy, that the cornbread will live on as long as Sam Jones is smoking hogs.

“I look at it as kind of a banner of honor,” Jones said. “Apparently there’s plenty of people out there who eat it and like it.”

Put another way, watch your mouth when you’re talking about the Jones family cornbread.

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