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Well, for now...it will be the mix of the polenta with the other. Half and half. It seemed to get better results...and DH...actually exclaimed TWICE!!.....that it was much much better cornbread than the rubbery stuff. |em1|

See...in trying to find once more what I am searching for....I really need to know what level of "grind" the former stuff was.
Polenta-is actually too coarse.
The big bag on the shelf....at ALL the stores I have went to locally....is the finer ground stuff. Or...all "self rising". Useless.
I find the self rising has too much sodium. Makes the batter saltier, and still not the right texture.

I unfortunately have no previous empty bags of the older cornmeal ground. I don't remember it sayign anything different either. Mills just changed things...snuck it up on the consumer.

I ave looked online. That puts me back to having to identify which grind I am looking for. One site....have 5 or 6 different levels of grind. I need to see some in my hand to figure it all out. |em3|

I know that they process cornmeal differently now, with most commercial brands being degerminated. I don't know if that is part of the problem maybe? I bought some of the Bob's Red Mill cornmeal, and I think it would be more of what you are looking for. They leave the germ in and don't fortify it or anything. It is a much coarser grind than what you'll find with most commercial cornmeals.

It seems that GMO corn will end up in too many products these days. Everything has corn in it. And unfortunately, I use a few of them.
So I just try to limit how much I use them.
Right now, we have no way here to successfully grow corn, and grow enough corn, to make it worth our while. So I will just have to know what food products contain corn, and/or use them sparingly.

I am glad you may have found a solution. I haven't been buying corn meal, since I wanted GMO free stuff. I finally found a source for organic cornmeal, but have not used it to make corn bread. I rarely use it. I am more interested in corn flour, so I can make tortillas.
I tend to stay away from grains in general.
I did grow my own corn for grinding and thogh I can grind many grains in the blender, corn is too tought to grind that way. So I got a manual grain mill for Chistmas and we tried it out once. It was still hard to do, so I have not really used it yet. The corn that I grew has been going to the chickens and goats.

Ok..I might have found a "fix" for this problem. I had some of the polenta ground left over, so tonight I mixed it half and half with the other stuff. It turned out edible. |em1|

I think to use it straight in the cornbread might make it too rough. But mixing it seems to help the texture. |em24|

I did. I have tried everything i could think of. Extra egg, milk, oil. Sifting and being anal about measuring the cornmeal.

Nothing has worked. That's why I ended up posting queries on the internet.

No guarantees here, but try adding an extra egg or maybe even two. I have to battle bad batters all of the time with the GF stuff and the extra eggs really help to make it lighter and more moist.

My MIL gave me a bag she didn't like. I baked 1 batch of cornbread from it. Yuk. It was far too salty.

now that you mention it, I don't remember self-rising meal either |em22| but then I never buy it either. I want to 'raise' it myself :lol:

Baking powder. The Clabber Girl one.

I have only ever used what used to be sold at the stores. It used to be, plain old corn meal. Now it is powdery fine.

My former MIL taught me to cook cornbread with her recipe. Good ol' country cooking from the Missouri Ozarks.

i C. cornmeal
1 C. flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 C sugar
1 egg
1/4 C. Vegetable oil
1 C milk.

Mix ingredients. Pour in pre-heated cast iron skillet. Bake inhot oven, 425F for 25 minutes.
It had always turned out perfect.

I have made it this way since 1979.

There was only ever one kind of grind for cornmeal previously. I didn't even remember seeing self-rising bags till recently. Just the other little boxes.