Southern Cornbread

i'm making a big pot of pinto beans today and wanted some cornbread to go with them. i realized that i've never tried the cornbread recipe in The New Best Recipe, so i gave it a try. now, TNBR has both a northern cornbread recipe and a southern cornbread recipe. northern cornbread? that belongs in the category of cakey brownies or cincinnati chili--that is, foods that shouldn't really exist. so, to be the best, the cookbook says you need to start with a small cornmeal mush (corn meal and boiling water), then add the buttermilk and egg, then the rest of the dry ingredients, then pour into a hot skillet and bake. this is good cornbread! i like that there is absolutely no flour in it; just cornmeal. i think that's why the mush is necessary because, otherwise, it would have been too dense. this is just the right consistency and very, um, corn-y.