cornpone
Plain cornmeal bread, baked or fried.
Also called corn pone, pone.
Updated September 21, 2026
cornpone pronunciation
/KORN-pohn/
Meaning
Old-school Southern cornbread, often just cornmeal, water or milk, salt, and fat — no fancy mix. Baked in a skillet or shaped by hand. On a rural table it means supper bread, not a bakery loaf. Folks also say corn pone as two words.
How folks use it
- “Pass that cornpone before the butter melts clean off it.”
- “Grandma fried cornpone in the cast iron every Saturday.”
Origin and etymology
Pone comes from Algonquian words for baked bread (Powhatan apan and kin), borrowed by colonists in the early 1600s. Corn pone / cornpone later named plain Southern cornmeal bread. By the 1900s the word also got used as a jab at folksy Southern style, but the food sense came first.
Frequently asked questions
Is cornpone the same as cornbread?
It's a plain, old-fashioned kind of cornbread. Many recipes skip eggs and keep it denser than cafe cornbread.