03/17/2026
When it comes to BBQ, regional differences, recipes, tastes, and traditions fascinate me.
From red slaw of the Carolinas, to creamy coleslaw from the Hudson River valley, its all good, and right where it belongs.
Cornbread is a popular BBQ sidekick, but with due respect, the early colonists never saw "corn" before entering the Americas, and native americans were making "cornbread" for centuries before colonists at Jamestown, or pilgrims stepping on to Plymouth rock.
One thing that puzzles me (growing up in New England) in the "tradition" of things, is the new england tradition of baked beans, and slices of rich, molasses based Boston brown bread.
Every Saturday night, fall and winter, there would be a bean pot in the oven, and a can of brown bread steaming in a cook pot, with aroma that would just make you smile.
Boston brown bread ingredients are such, that its better suited to being cooked in a can, and steamed within a pot of boiling water. With its molasses base, and rye flour, it would tend to burn if baked like cornbread in an oven, so it was traditionally cooked in a coffee or tomato can, boiled in water.
Whats puzzled me, as BBQ evolved in popularity in the northeast, is WHY our traditional brown bread didnt folliw the baked beans to the dinner table?... I think its every bit as good a side as cornbread, in the realm of BBQ'd cooking.
Today in the rain, I was messing around in the kitchen, and decided to merge the two, cornbread and brown bread. Layered in mini loafs, i alternated cornbread and brown bread batter, into marbled cornbread hybrid, with the traditional new england molasses based brown bread. ( With care to keep the brown bread batter from touching the sides of the loaf pan - in fear it might burn).
I was curious if the two diferent batters would be able to cook off at the same rate in a baking pan, and would the flavors merge, and BOOM!
Smoked a chicken for supper, with baked beans, mustard pickles, and this marbled corn/brown bread, that I think goes with BBQ like peanut butter and jelly! Try it sometime!
