The history of cornbread is quite a maize…you might even say it is a-maizing. Corn was first cultivated in Mexico thousands of years ago and soon spread north to native american tribes in what would one day become the United States. When European settlers arrived they quickly adopted corn as a staple crop and with it the native american cornbread, particularly in the south where European wheat and rye crops faired poorly. Cornbread started as coarsely ground corn meal mixed with water baked over an open hearth fire but soon had other ingredients added (buttermilk, eggs, baking powder, rendered pork fat), just whatever you had around the cabin. You might say that it was the Lembas Bread of the South. 

What is Lembas Bread? Elvish whey bread, also a convenient plot device to explain why the Fellowship didn’t need a cook and a wagon of food supplies. It was described as brown on the outside with a creamy color inside, and it was made with…corn? 

Though the grain used to make Lembas is called “corn” it is most likely similar to wheat. In British usage, “corn” was any grain crop; what North Americans call “corn”, British have historically called “maize”.[6]

Your intrepid release notes scribe must admit, this was news to me. The English word “corn” was traditionally analogous to the word “grain” but in the US it became exclusively tied to the Native American “maize” crop. 

Never the less…there is a grain of truth to the fact that Lembas bread is cornbread. And aw shucks, I kinda love that. And it Elves had corn and made cornbread, it is also likely that Lothlorien had stills…just what was that vial of clear liquid that Galadriel gave Frodo?