You will almost certainly be served hushpuppies if you order fried catfish or shrimp if you’ve ever been to the South, or indeed anywhere in the country where a true Southerner has built a restaurant.
In a deep fryer, they are cooked until the outside is crisp and the middle is soft and chewy after being dipped in a thick cornmeal batter and molded into balls, fingers, or even long, squiggly strands. They are delicious, well-known, and of unknown origin.
Not that attempts haven’t been made to explain how hushpuppies came to be. The lack of sufficient effort is the issue.
Myths Relating to the History of Huskies
Here is a brief description of the several hushpuppy origin stories that are currently prevalent in books, magazines, and the information-rich Google of the Internet.
Hush up, puppy!
The most common explanation for its name is that when fishermen go out, they start cooking their catch, and their dogs yelp and yap in anticipation. Unknown to why they brought hound dogs on a fishing trip, bits of dough would be fried and thrown to the puppies to keep them quiet.
There is a constant tendency to relate everything to the Civil War when talking about Southern cuisine. When Confederate soldiers eating by a campfire heard Yankee forces coming, they gave their barking dogs some fried cornmeal cakes and told them to be quiet.
How about an Old Mammy? Since you’re making up stories about the South, why not throw in some derogatory stereotypes of African Americans? According to a recurrent myth, the remaining dredge from battering and frying catfish was brought down to the slave quarters where “the women added a little milk, egg, and onion and cooked it up.” (They had to little access to cornmeal but had plenty of milk and eggs.) Those cooks would distribute the pones, saying, “Hush chilluns, hush pups,” in an effort to calm the begging kids and dogs attracted to the fragrance of fried batter.
Get Thee to a Nunnery
It takes French culinary expertise to teach Southerners how to bake cornmeal batter in this particular version. In the 1720s, freshly arriving French Ursuline nuns in New Orleans made croquettes de maise, hand-shaped patties, using the local Native Americans’ cornmeal (that is, corn croquettes). They then expanded throughout the South; however, it is unclear when and how that happened. Sometimes a different “quiet, dog” custom is used to explain the disappearance of the French name.
Leaping lizards are most likely the strangest animals. Southern Louisiana Cajuns allegedly deep-fried a salamander known as a “dirt puppy.” According to one survey, eating salamanders “scored low on the social measure.” The diners made no comments about it.
The frequency with which these claims are repeated by gourmet writers without any attempt to substantiate them is simply distressing. Then they shrug and add, “Well, here’s a recipe,” capping off their list after listing them all out.
The distinction between fact and fiction is typically impossible while eating Southern food, but for many Southern recipes, the legend adds a lot of charm and appeal.
Southern Legend
If we take Southern culinary mythology at face value, true historical stories are considerably more fascinating than a collection of made-up ones. Hogwash! Making the distinction between fact and fiction is valuable in and of itself. Being incorrect is not very charming. We will miss out on some actual stories that are much more interesting than a lot of unsubstantiated nonsense if we take the folklore surrounding Southern cuisine at its value. Even when the offending accent and other accouterments are removed, situations like the typical mammy narrative promote unfavorable stereotypes.
A well-known illustration of cognitive laziness in action is hushpuppies. So let’s investigate where they came from.
From the Bread of the Red Horse
Southerners have long been eating delightful balls of fried cornmeal batter, even though they weren’t always known as hushpuppies. The term “hushpuppy” was used in print for at least 20 years. “Red horse bread” was being consumed in South Carolina. It wasn’t red, and it had nothing to do with horses. The red horse was a typical South Carolina fish served at fish fries by the banks, along with bream, catfish, and trout.
Romeo Govan referred to as “a famous cook of the last regime” in the Augusta Chronicle of 1903, created red horse bread. During the “clubhouse fishing season,” people commonly gathered at the frame building with a well-kept yard to feast on “fish of every sort, prepared in every style, served with a side of red horse bread.”
This red horse bread was produced by simply combining cornmeal, water, salt, and egg. It was then dropped by spoonfuls into the hot fat that had been used for frying the fish. He may have come up with the phrase “red horse bread,” which initially appears in print almost solely with descriptions of a fish fry Govans cooked.
Mr. “Romy”
In 1845, “Romy” Govans, also known by his pet name, was born into slavery. Romy spent the remainder of his life on a plot of property close to Cannon’s Bridge after the Civil War. The most powerful white community members attended the fish fries and other parties he planned for them, and the money he earned from the tips allowed him to purchase the house and the surrounding acreage.
Due to his abilities, Govan became well-known and helped a lot of sportsmen in South Carolina. The story of a kind grandma providing leftovers from the Big House to needy dogs is expressed differently by an entertainer of governors, senators, and politicians.
At a Romeo Govan fish dinner, a reporter praised the red horse bread, saying, “This was a novel bread to the writer and so wonderful that I beg enthusiasts of the finny tribe to try some.” An observer at a fish fry made the observation that “every visiting woman and man was soon engrossed with pencil and paper taking down the recipe.” in Modern Beekeeping. (The men were there, too.).”
Romeo Govan died in 1915. His red horse bread endured and eventually spread over most South Carolina as the required side dish for dinners containing fried fish.
In the Palmetto State, Southerners weren’t only deep-frying gallons of cornmeal batter from the Red Horse to the Hush Puppy. The Savannah River’s Georgian cousins call them “Red Horse” bread.
This story isn’t over yet. Be sure to join us for Part 2.
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