Apple pie gets the spotlight, but there may be no dish more quintessentially American than cornbread. The star comfort food is a staple of holiday tables as well as a seasonal stalwart accompaniment to chili and other stews (and to barbecued meats year-round).

And while there’s a maze of offerings on the grocery store shelf, commercially available mixes are a distinctly mixed bag. Some are to be avoided, and several are worth seeking out. But in our quest to determine which mixes deserve a place in your carts, we encountered an interesting phenomenon. More than perhaps any other category of products we’ve tasted, people’s ideas of what constitutes the optimal cornbread varied widely. Should it be dryer or more moist? Cake-like or more dense? And most contentious of all: Does sugar belong

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