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Monday, June 26, 2006

Hush Puppies

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups corn meal
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 tsp baking powder
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1/2 cup onions, finely chopped
  • milk

Combine all dry ingredients. Add eggs, onions and enough milk to make a thick batter. Drop teaspoons full in 5 inch deep hot oil. Fry until golden brown.


Legend has it that the origin of name Hush Puppies (corn fritters) came into existence somewhat by accident. The story goes that many years ago, when both sides of a Cajun family would get together once a year for a family reunion, the men would venture off into the woods and along the bayous to procure wild game and fish. Before leaving they would butcher a few domestic animals for the women to process and prepare meals while they were away.

Upon their return, the men would clean and fry the fish first because fish had a tendency to spoil quickly. Refrigerators and freezers back in the old days were a little scarce.

The hunting dogs were tied a few feet away from camp and were always barking because they were hungry, too. So the men, after frying the fish, would add some milk and baking powder to the cornmeal and flour batter and make corn fritters. To quiet the dogs they would toss them a few bite-size morsels of the fried fritters while saying ..."hush puppy".
That's our story and we are sticking to it.
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3 comments:

  1. These hush puppies are really outstanding. We use the recipe at least once per month. Linda Masters

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ran across this site while searching for the origin of the term "hush puppies" to tell my 15 yr old daughter. Your story closely matches the story my Mom told me, that hush puppies were created from left over batter to "hush the young dogs". Mom, who was born in 1918 and died in 1998, relayed the story from her mother. She never used the term cajun and as far as I know never knew what a "cajun" was. so I think its a story of the South.

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