Where Did Hush Puppies Come From?
It's all about fried food and a good story.
Nothing goes better with a plate of fried seafood than the deliciously crispy nugget known as the hush puppy. In the South, the golden brown bites are a favorite side dish. Great for any cookout or barbecue, hush puppies are a timeless choice—though we're still figuring out when and how they came to be. You may be wondering: What exactly is a hush puppy?
The name is cute and a little quirky. It's merely a small, deep-fried ball made from thick cornmeal-based batter. While many cooks have put their own twist on the traditional hush puppy, they are almost always crispy on the outside and warm and doughy on the inside. Some variations on the hush puppy recipe include shrimp-and-okra, jalapeno, crab, and even muffins.
When Were Hushpuppies Invented?
They're classic and delightfully indulgent, but the story behind their origin is up in the air. Here are a few popular legends associated with hush puppies:
Civil War
One popular legend has it that Confederate soldiers preparing dinner around a bonfire heard the footsteps of the Union soldiers approaching. Afraid of being discovered, they gave their barking dogs bits of fried cornmeal and commanded them to ″hush, puppies!"
Red Horse Bread
Red horse fish were commonly cooked up at fish fries in South Carolina at the time the hush puppy was invented—and according to Southern Living's Contributing Barbecue Editor Robert F. Moss, that wasn't until around the turn of the 20th century. In this tale, the globs of cornmeal were fried in the same grease as the Red Horse fish...hence the name Red Horse Bread. It wasn't until the 1920s that a rival term, hush puppy, was first recorded in Georgia.
French Nuns
As the story goes, French nuns arriving in New Orleans in the early 18th century discovered cornmeal from local American Indian tribes and eventually created dough-based corn patties named croquettes de maise. There is no explanation for how (or why) the name shifted to hush puppies.
Shut That Dog Up
It's the most common legend of them all. Fishermen would begin cooking their catch, and inevitably the dogs would start howling in anticipation. To keep the animals quiet, cooks would fry balls of dough and feed them to the puppies in hopes they would hush up. Moss argues there's another way of looking at it: Hush puppies quiet our growling stomachs while we're waiting for the rest of dinner. We can't disagree with that one.
Tasty Salamanders
In this version, Southern Louisianans would batter up salamanders and call them mud puppies. Since the community frowned upon consuming salamanders for dinner, the diners kept the practice hush-hush.
Amongst all the folklore, one thing is certainly true: Southerners have a passion for fried food and a good story.
How To Make Hush Puppies
Hush puppies are prepared in the fryer and best eaten hot. At their most basic, hush puppies include flour, cornmeal, baking soda, and milk or buttermilk. The batter often includes onion, which gives them a flavor that's distinct from cornbread. These are some of our favorite recipes for hush puppies:
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Read the original article on Southern Living.
