While the basic recipe involves the same core ingredients as cornbread – namely cornmeal, milk, butter, and eggs – the mode of preparation creates a final product with a soft, rather than crumbly, texture.

[2][4]: 25 The earliest versions of spoonbread are believed to be of Native American origin, and settlers in South Carolina commonly called it Owendaw or Awendaw in reference to the local Sewee tribe town.

[3][5] Recipes similar to spoonbread begin appearing after the end of the colonial period, although these are either sweetened for a dessert course (and typically called Indian pudding), or incorporate wheat flour, as in Mary Randolph’s 1824 cookbook The Virginia House-Wife.

[8] The elevated technique of separating the eggs to create a risen, soufflé-style of spoonbread originated with enslaved African American chefs trained in French culinary method, such as James Hemings.

Spoonbread also epitomizes the three-part blending of Indigenous, European, and African American cuisines that characterizes Southern food.