4/16/2023 0 Comments Hush puppies originMy son has a theory that a certain Florida-based grocery store chain known for its fried chicken actually pipes the smell into its parking lots to lure hungry shoppers inside. Looking for something different? Try these Pimento Cheese Hush Puppies from Southern Bite. So what is Moss' explanation for the origins of the term "hushpuppy?" It is likely the term is a euphemism for "stopping the dogs in your stomach from growling."Ĭlick here for a traditional hushpuppy recipe from Southern Plate. He wrote: "… early accounts of hushpuppies and red horse bread make clear that diners treated this new food not as a cheap substitute but rather as a luxury worthy of admiration." Moss said, however, this type of tale is unlikely because people thought of hushpuppies as a unique and special treat and not a lowly food. It is said they were called hushpuppies because eating such lowly food was not something a southern wife would want known to her neighbors." gives another unusual backstory about the origins of the word: "In the South, the Salamander was often known as a 'water dog' or 'water puppy.' These were deep-fried with cornmeal and formed into sticks. Even Merriam-Webster Dictionary repeats the tale as the source of the word. The soldiers, some say, named the bread balls "hushpuppies" for the same reason as the fishermen: to quiet the hounds. The story goes that they derived their name from old fishing and hunting expeditions, when the white folks ate to repletion, the Negro help ate beyond repletion 1, and the hunting dogs, already fed, smelled the delectable odors of human rations and howled for the things the remaining cornmeal patties to the dogs, calling, 'Hush, puppies!' – and the dogs, devouring them, could ask no more of life, and hushed."Īnother tale says the bread was popular among soldiers during the Civil War because it was cheap and easy to make while camping. Fresh-caught fish without hush-puppies are as man without woman, a beautiful woman without kindness, law without policemen. They are concomitant of the hunt, above all of the fishing trip. "Hush-puppies are in a class by themselves. Majorie Kinnan Rawlings, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of "The Yearling" repeated one of the most popular tales in her 1942 cookbook, "Cross Creek Cookery:" The bread balls later came to be called "hushpuppies" and legends arose to explain the strange name. The "red horse" name possibly originated with a man named Roman Govans, a former slave who was known for hosting fish fries to earn tips, Moss wrote. According to Robert Moss in an article on, one newspaper from the time said the bread was made by "simply mixing cornmeal with water, salt, and egg, and dropped by spoonfuls in the hot lard in which fish have been fried." Cornbread and fried breads have been around for centuries, of course, but when did hushpuppies become hushpuppies? When references to the fried balls first appeared at the turn of the 20 th century, largely in South Carolina and Georgia, they were called "red horse bread," because they were often eaten with fried red horse fish, commonly found in local rivers.
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