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Re: Hushpuppies - was Ahem! (blush)



I figured if we were going to get this deeply into food history, the CIA had better chime in. The _Food Lover's Companion_, which we librarians here have been told to regard as a source second only to our Bible, our own publication _The New Pro Chef_ (which does include a recipe for hush puppies, but no history) repeats the story of the African American cooks (but raises the onions in the recipe to more exalted scallions). Craig Claiborne's _New York Times Food Encyclopedia_ tells a similar story, but with Southern troops using the "patties" to hush "yelping dogs" when Yankee troops came near (this was during The Late Unpleasantness, of course).  _The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink_ says this food was developed during the times of hardship in the South following the Civil War and cites the _Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins_ quoting a Southerner who said that the cornmeal dough formed into sticks resembled a salamander (latin names given for two types of salamanders!) called a water dog or water puppy; the "puppy" part is because the dough resembled the salamander and  and the "hush" part is "because eating such lowly food was not something a southern wife would want known to her neighbors." (sounds a little far fetched to me....) You'll be happy to know that I restrained my urge to see what the Oxford English Dictionary had to say on the question.


Christine Crawford-Oppenheimer
Special Collections Librarian/Archivist
Culinary Institute of America
433 Albany Post Road
Hyde Park, NY  12538-1499
(914) 451-1757
c_crawfo@culinary.edu

>>> Arlette Copeland <Copeland_A@MERCER.EDU> 03/21/00 05:30PM >>>
There is another part of the Hush Puppy history commonly told.  It says that
African American cooks came up with the concoction in antebellum days. This
folklore says that when the cooks were preparing meals the dogs would gather
around and begin to bark because they liked the smell and wanted to be fed. The
barking was aggravating to those gathered for the meal. To keep the dogs quiet,
the women dropped batter into the grease and then tossed the balls to the dogs
saying "Hush puppy!"

I was for six years a newspaper food writer and I read this story more than
once.  Unfortunately I can't remember the sources. You might check the
Encyclopedia of Southern Culture.

However they came about they were ingenious additions to Southern eating and my
hat is off to the creator.  Have a good evening.

Arlette Copeland

Ginny Jones wrote:

> Hush puppies are a southern delicacy made from corn meal, egg, milk, and
> chopped onion; rolled into bite size balls and fried to a golden brown.
> After 5 days the drippin' you fried them in may take on a new life form!  To
> keep the thread pertinent (pardon my toungue in my cheek) - historically
> hush puppies were a "poor man's" food because they are very filling and
> require commonly obtainable and inexpensive ingredients.
>
> The name supposedly comes from using them as a quickly concocted, somewhat
> nutritional and cheap way of feeding dogs and puppies that have been weaned
> or have lost their mothers.
>
> Ginny Jones
> (Virginia A. Jones, CRM)
> Newport News Waterworks
> Newport News, VA
> vjones@ci.newport-news.va.us 
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Archives & Archivists [mailto:ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU]On 
> > Behalf Of Linda Nakamura
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 2:44 PM
> > To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU 
> > Subject: Re: Ahem! (blush)
> >
> >
> > Hello to everyone:  Just to become an
> > object of ridicule myself, I have to
> > ask: what is a hush puppy?  Why are they
> > dangerous after five days?  I thought
> > they were shoes.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Linda
> > lnakamura@aao.org 
> > "Can hear the smirks now..."
> >
>
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--
Arlette Copeland                        Mercer University Main Library
Special Collections Assistant       1300 Edgewood Avenue
(912) 301-2968                           Macon, Georgia 31207-0001


copeland_a@mercer.edu 
http://cdsearch.mercer.edu/mainlib/special_collections/default.htm 

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Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
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Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>