How would you interpret this phrase?
How would you interpret this phrase ‘his dinner of sowbelly and cornbread with syrup poured over it’?
Does it mean his dinner consisted of some sowbelly and some cornbread, and only the cornbread was poured over with syrup?
Thanks! It’s from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by McCullers.

the context:
All of Singer’s money was gone and he had to borrow from the jeweler for whom he worked. On one occasion he was unable to pay bail for his friend and Antonapoulos spent the night in jail. When Singer came to get him out the next day he was very sulky. He did not want to leave. He had enjoyed his dinner of sowbelly and cornbread with syrup poured over it. And the new sleeping arrangements and his cellmates pleased him.Or does it mean both sowbelly and cornbread were poured over with syrup?

Question

How would you interpret this phrase?
How would you interpret this phrase ‘his dinner of sowbelly and cornbread with syrup poured over it’?
Does it mean his dinner consisted of some sowbelly and some cornbread, and only the cornbread was poured over with syrup?
Thanks! It’s from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by McCullers.

the context:
All of Singer’s money was gone and he had to borrow from the jeweler for whom he worked. On one occasion he was unable to pay bail for his friend and Antonapoulos spent the night in jail. When Singer came to get him out the next day he was very sulky. He did not want to leave. He had enjoyed his dinner of sowbelly and cornbread with syrup poured over it. And the new sleeping arrangements and his cellmates pleased him.Or does it mean both sowbelly and cornbread were poured over with syrup?

Answer

It's ambiguous, as the others say. I learn from Googling that sowbelly, cornmeal, and molasses or sorghum syrup were basic, cheap subsistence food, and that sowbelly is essentially pure fat. I think it's even possible that sowbelly and cornbread might  even have been stirred up together before putting syrup over the mixture; one Google hit mentions "syrup mixed with hog grease rendered from the hog fat and baked corn meal, called 'hoe cake.'" Another Google hits mentions, someone, as a child, being sent to a store to buy a dime's worth of sowbelly "and the plea, "Miss Agnes, Maw says send her some this time without no nipples in it."

Answer

It's ambiguous. It could be just over the cornbread or over both. I would suspect the syrup is poured over everything. It's also quite possible the sow belly is atop the cornbread and then the whole thing is topped with syrup.

Answer

Sowbelly for what i know i something close to bacon. I think that the main character is going to eat them all together, however, if i had to pick one, I'd say that the syrup was poured over the sowbelly and then ate with the bread. I don't see why someone should do the contrary.