So, corn bread. “It was one of those last-minute things,” Schlesinger said. “I looked at that barbecue platter and realized, someone better get a recipe for corn bread right now.”

Someone did. Schlesinger says it came directly off the box of cornmeal closest to hand, but this is almost certainly untrue. The result — corn bread that is lofty and sweet, crusty on its exterior and nearly cakelike within — is too moist and ethereal to be the product of an industrial test kitchen. The East Coast Grill corn bread is a corn bread to become a child’s favorite, to become the only corn bread that matters. All else is not corn bread.

It has been on the menu of the East Coast Grill ever since.

Corn bread is, literally, a quick bread: cornmeal and flour leavened by baking powder and enriched by milk and eggs. A little more than an hour takes it from magazine daydream to kitchen counter.

You can use it as a sop for chili or as a napkin for ribs, as an accompaniment for fried chicken or gumbo, or for a simple lunchtime snack. Children will eat it with butter, adults with a drizzle of honey amped up with red-pepper flakes (try this on fried chicken as well). Leftovers dried in the oven make for powerful croutons on a salad of chopped romaine with a buttermilk dressing, or they can be used as a stuffing for chicken or turkey. There is really no reason not to make corn bread right away.

The batter is forgiving. Those who spurn Schlesinger’s traditions can increase the amount of cornmeal in it (and decrease the amount of flour). This leads to a bread that is denser, with a more pronounced flavor of corn — though to some it will add a noticeable degree of grittiness as well. The amount of sugar can come down a quarter cup with no real loss of deliciousness. You can fry a few pieces of bacon in the pan you will bake the bread in and use the grease to slick its surface. Once the dry ingredients have been combined with the wet, the frisky home cook can cut into the mixture a few minced jarred chipotle peppers, to add a smoky heat that invokes Southwestern vistas, far from the beach.