The Pennsylvania Dutch were and still are noted for their culinary achievements and gracious hospitality. It became a tradition to put exactly seven sweets and seven sours on the table whenever guests ate with the family.

This combination of pudding and sauce is uncommonly good eating.

I wonder how many of us to stop to think when we are preparing tasty satisfying dish such as this how good a friend the onion is to cook. Some happy day a perceptive food writer will do a definitive monograph on the onion that will rank with Lamb’s essay on roast pork.

This isn’t a complicated cornbread formula, but the secret of its appeal, judging by the way our friends and neighbors eat at our Saturday and Sunday suppers — is the touch of allspice. Offhand, I don’t recall seeing any cornbread recipe calling for allspice.