News It's So Hot in Kansas, One Man Baked Cornbread in a Pan on the Street Though he wasn't impressed with the results. By Jelisa Castrodale Jelisa Castrodale Jelisa Castrodale has been a staff writer with Food & Wine since 2019. Food & Wine's Editorial Guidelines Published on August 23, 2023 Photo: Marie C Fields / Shutterstock Like many parts of America, Kansas has been experiencing extremely high temperatures, and several long-standing heat-related records have been broken within the past week. The historically high numbers on the thermometer even prompted one Wichita man to bake a side dish right on the ground. According to KWCH 12 News, John Veesart filled a “vintage Griswold cast-iron Aebleskiver skillet” with a boxed cornbread mix, placed it in a cardboard box lined with aluminum foil, and then just waited for the heat index to do its thing. (The temperature in Wichita was a record-setting 108 degrees. In a series of photos Veesart sent to the TV station, the temperature inside the covered pan registered as high as 180 degrees before eventually cooling to 110. "I enjoy cooking with cast iron, and everyone knows how hot black objects get in the summer," Veesart explained. He put the cornbread out in the full sun at around 12:30 p.m., and it had finished cooking by 6 p.m., but he was slightly disappointed by the final result. "They did cook all the way through with a slight crust, but they did not brown, as you can see," he said. "It made me think of when you pour a cornbread mix on top of a pot of chili and let it cook." (But yes, he did eat one muffin, for science.) Although Veesart really did cook his cornbread in a cardboard box, a Texas grandma was just kidding when she said she baked bread in her mailbox. In July, a pair of Roberta Tays Wright's photos went viral, as the internet seemed to collectively wonder whether she'd really turned her mailbox into a tiny oven. "I have been contacted by people I've never heard from," Wright told ABC 13. "Countries I've never heard from." According to Snopes, her perfectly browned bread came from her totally conventional kitchen…but she did put the dough in the mailbox where it could rise in "a warm draftless space" before taking it back indoors. "When fully proofed, I baked it inside in my traditional oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes to bake it and brown the top," she told the website. "Then, I returned it to the mailbox for the playful photo. Frankly, it has been a bit overwhelming, but [also] a lot of fun." Just wait until we fill our car trunk with an entire rack of ribs, leaving them to smoke in the back of our Subaru. That's going to blow the internet's mind. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit