Origin of Hushpuppies
Posted Friday, June 27, 2008 3:08:44 PM"Why is a hushpuppy called a 'hushpuppy'?"
To satisfy our curiosity I did a little research and quickly found that the hush puppy originated in New Orleans, Louisiana. Why it is actually called a hushpuppy is debated, but most agree it's either:
1. Hunters and fishermen would make the fried cornmeal and feed it to their dogs with the command to "hush, puppies" so that they wouldn't disturb their prey.
2. Confederate soldiers would make the fried cornmeal to their dogs with the command to "hush, puppies" so that union soldiers wouldn't hear the dogs.
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There are 13 comments on this article
avenue17 (4 months ago)
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DONEBRASCO (3 years ago)
The real story is bit to much for most. However, I'll summarize... Sometimes the litter of guard dogs would have pups with irradiate and irrational barking habits. This was a problem for guards as they were constant false alarms. So by removing the testicles and demasculating them they would follow the commands by being more submissive. Now the relating to the food part is actually much worse so I will leave that to the imagination, but some guards had a twisted sense of humor!
DONEBRASCO (3 years ago)
The real story is bit to much for most. However, I'll summarize... Sometimes the litter of guard dogs would have pups with irradiate and irrational barking habits. This was a problem for guards as they were constant false alarms. So by removing the testicles and demasculating them they would follow the commands by being more submissive. Now the relating to the food part is actually much worse so I will leave that to the imagination, but some guards had a twisted sense of humor!
Julia (3 years ago)
Hi,
Why didn’t you include the story about runaway slaves? If you’re clearly posting more than one version, what made you leave the others out..
Why didn’t you include the story about runaway slaves? If you’re clearly posting more than one version, what made you leave the others out..
Julia (3 years ago)
Hi,
Why didn’t you include the story about runaway slaves? If you’re clearly posting more than one version, what made you leave the others out..
Why didn’t you include the story about runaway slaves? If you’re clearly posting more than one version, what made you leave the others out..
Norman E. Robertson (4 years ago)
According to my grandmother, there exists a totally different origin of hush puppies in American history during slavery. Slaves planning to escape in the wee hours of the night would prepare a concoction of cornmeal, milk, eggs and okra which was fried and then thrown to the slaveowners’ dogs as a means to quieten them. Hence was born the term “hush puppies. “
tam (5 years ago)
i was told that it was used by slaves that escaped to the underground railroads to silence the hunting dogs that were released to find them. it was a snack for the travels to the underground railroad but loosing the snack was better than risking their freedom or life with those dogs.
tam (5 years ago)
cool
Richard Welch (6 years ago)
The REAL story about hush puppies !!! During slave days the kitchens were not attached to the houses. There was a walkway from the kitchens to the main house called a "Whistle Walk". When the slaves were bringing the food to the main house they had to whistle so that the owners knew the slaves weren't eating any of the food. This whistling prompted the dogs to bark because they also knew that food was moving. The slaves would throw the dogs the little donut like hush puppies to keep the dogs quiet. That way the owners could hear them whistling. Now you know the REAL hush puppy story !!!
Dusty Rhodes (8 years ago)
my grandmothers origin of the hush puppy was a corn fritter that was deep fried and given to the dogs so they would not jump on you while you were transferring a hot meal from the kitchen (located in a building not in the house, as not to cause a fire)to the house.
MonstaRoc (8 years ago)
Really Landon? Really!?
sirius cosmos (9 years ago)
Run away slaves carried balls odd corn meal in their pockets, so when the massas dog ran after them the slaves would disperse the hush puppies to make the puppuppies hush.
landon (12 years ago)
Why aren't they called hush dogs then?????