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  • From: Mjkoaktreecottag AT aol.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Life in the 1500's
  • Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 13:44:54 EDT

Hello again ~ I don't know anything about the Alonguin spelling for corn
cakes, so won't comment on the derivation of the term, but I have made "hoe
cakes" on the open hearth, both on a hoe blade (he old hand-forged ones were
wider than the hoe heads of today) and on a hanging griddle. I used a 17th-
18th
C. recipe--very simple--- coarsely ground meal, and water to hold them
together. I cheated and added a little salt, but they were still
unappetizing to
my 20th century tastebuds, although those cooked on the griddle in sidemeat
[bacon] drippings were a tad better, because of the flavor the salty fat
gave
them. So I can easily imagine
that they were subsistence food and not eaten by choice. Then I read in
several accounts, recollections by old-timers rhapsodizing about hoe cake,
which
"wondered me", until I learned that later recipes included such refinements
as buttermilk, ocassionally an egg, possibly even saleratus [a forerunner to
baking soda or powder] so were more like cornbread, thus more palatable,
especially when smothered in molasses! So sometimes even recollections have
to
be taken with a grain of salt....
maggie





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