Hushpuppies and Coastal North Carolina
Written by Grace Midha
Introduction
Across barbecue joints and seafood restaurants in North Carolina, hushpuppies can be found on almost every menu. The small cornmeal fritters have become an enduring symbol of southern cuisine. When doing research on hushpuppies, I did not expect there to be such a rich history surrounding the food and its origins. The stories and recipes shared in this exhibit reveal the complex history of this seemingly simple appetizer.
Hushpuppy History
To understand the history of hushpuppies, it is essential to begin with the contributions of Indigenous peoples across North and South America, who were the first to cultivate corn and incorporate ground corn into their cooking. Among these innovations was nixtamalization, a process developed in Mesoamerica that later spread northward and was adopted by Native American communities, including those in present-day North Carolina.[1] Nixtimilization is the process through which corn is ground into meal or alkalinized through the addition of line (the mineral) or culinary ash (made from the burning of particular plants). Alkalinizing achieves several purposes, including removing the corn kernels from the husk and making them two to three times their original size. After going through the nixtamalization process, corn becomes much easier to grind up into a meal that is more nutritious, and easier to digest. Products of this process include masa harina, hominy, and posole, all of which can be used in hushpuppy recipes.[2] Without the indigenous people of America, we would not have the corn-based culinary traditions that we do now.
So many stories exist about the origins of hushpuppies, that they are nearly folklore in themselves. Given how many stories recount the origins of hushpuppies, we may never truly know their origins. Some sources suggest that the fritters came from Tallahassee, Florida, in a fishing village called Apalachicola. Dough was rolled in a mix that fish had been breaded in, and fried in a skillet over the fire. The fritters were then thrown to barking dogs in an attempt to keep them quiet, hence the name “hushpuppy.”[3]
Others maintain that hushpuppies must have originated during the Civil War, when a group of Confederate soldiers were cooking dinner around a fire one night, and thought they heard Union troops. They fried up cornmeal cakes and offered them to their dogs to keep them quiet.[4]
Another story is that Ursuline nuns who arrived in New Orleans in the 1720s created something called “croquettes de maise” after having to survive off of cornmeal. Tellers of this story believe that after this, the recipe then spread across the south.[5]
A compelling origin story describes Romeo Gavan, the figure credited for creating something called “red horse bread.” Gavan was an African American man who was born into slavery in the 1840s. After emancipation, he and his wife settled on a plot of land on the banks of the Edisto River in South Carolina. Gavan became famous for hosting fish fries for civic and political groups at a small club house that he built by the river. At these gatherings, he served fried fish, alongside a cornmeal fritter called “red horse bread,” made from cornmeal, water, salt and egg and fried in the same lard used for the fish. It is important to note that the bread was not named for its color, or horses, but for fish that were caught in the river that Gavan lived by. Guests found the bread particularly memorable, and Gavan’s fish fries became popular events, attended by everyone from local officials to state leaders. After Govan’s death in 1915, red horse bread spread beyond Govan’s gatherings and became a common feature at fish fries across the state of South Carolina. Today, some South Carolinians still refer to hushpuppies as “red horse bread.”[6]
While a South Carolinian may be credited for inventing a version of the hushpuppy, a Swansboro, North Carolina man, Walter Thompson helped introduce hushpuppies to people outside of the south. In 1948, he came out with a ready-made mix of cornmeal, flour and seasonings packaged in cardboard tubes, called “Thompson’s Fireside Hushpuppy Mix.”[7]
Thompson named his company “The Hushpuppy Corporation of America” and worked with many distributors throughout the south. Thompson’s Fireside Hushpuppy Mix was promoted through both newspaper and radio ads. One advertisement for the product, found in the Richmond Times Dispatch from May 6, 1949 calls hushpuppies “the delightfully different southern hot bread,” saying that all its customers need to do is “just add water.” The product sold for 30 cents a can.[8]
Thompson sold The Hushpuppy Corporation of America to investors only a year after its inception. After this, the company moved to Jacksonville, North Carolina. Thompson’s Fireside Hushpuppy Mix was on the market for over 20 years, before the company was sold to House-Autry Mills in Four Oaks, North Carolina, which still sells hushpuppy mix to this day.[9]
Hushpuppy Recipes
Perhaps the origin stories of the hushpuppy are difficult to corroborate because ultimately, the recipe is simple. Most versions of the recipe combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, onions, garlic, milk, oil, and eggs to create the dough. I found hushpuppy recipes across many different cookbooks, each with small variations, including books on cooking seafood and barbeque, and even church compilations, where members of a congregation could contribute recipes to a communal cookbook. I found one church, titled Island Born and Bred, which was compiled in 1987, by the United Methodist women of Harker’s Island, NC. This book includes three different hushpuppy recipes alone. A recipe for “Carol’s Hushpuppies” calls for “heaping spoonfuls of meal and flour, specifying that “spoonful” refers to a large cooking spoon. Another recipe for “Delicious Hushpuppies” forgoes onions, but makes sure to specify that its followers use peanut oil. The third recipe for “Mr. Bennie’s Hushpuppies.” calls for “handfuls of self-rising flour” and says that the frying oil must be exactly 350 degrees. Although these recipes vary slightly, they remain very similar in their core ingredients.[10]
James Villa, a well known chef from Charlotte, North Carolina, includes a recipe for “Beer Hush Puppies” in his cook book The Glory of Southern Cooking, which calls for green bell peppers and a cup of beer. The author notes that “of course the addition of bell pepper to the batter would never be tolerated at fish fries or barbecues up in Georgia and the Carolinas.”[11] I found this interesting as it is a testament to the unchanging nature of the hushpuppy. Even slight derivations from the recipe are unacceptable to purists, who believe that hushpuppies are perfect just the way they are.
I found a postcard from 1950, advertising “The New Home of the Sanitary Fish Market and Restaurant” in Morehead City, North Carolina. The restaurant was founded by two men named Jesse Lee “Tony” Seamon, and Vernon Jackson “Ted” Garner. Tony operated a fishing boat, and Ted helped organize trips on the boat, supplying bait. Tony started cooking fresh fish on board when he would take groups out on the boat. Satisfied customers encouraged the pair to open a restaurant, and on February 10, 1938 they opened the Sanitary Fish Market. [12] The restaurant is known for its hushpuppies, and its famous recipe can be found printed on the back of the postcard found from 1950 that advertised its new location.[13]
Conclusion
Despite their simplicity, hushpuppies are good enough for people to debate who owns their origin story. They are also emblematic of southern American food traditions that combine Native American roots with southern traditions, like fish fries, barbeque, and church gatherings, across many communities and generations. In North Carolina, these traditions are especially evident along the coast, where seafood restaurants and community cookbooks continue to include and celebrate hushpuppies as a staple. From Swansboro, to Harker’s Island, to Morehead City, and beyond, hushpuppies remain a reminder of how everyday foods can carry deep histories of place and tradition.
References
[1] Briggs, Rachel V. “Everything You Ever Needed to Know About Nixtamalization But Didn’t Know To Ask.” All Things Hominy, March 23, 2016. https://allthingshominy.com/2015/10/08/everything-you-ever-needed-to-know-about-nixtamalization-but-didnt-know-to-ask/.
[2] Dragonwagon, Crescent. The Cornbread Gospels. New York, New York: Workman Publishing, 2007.
[3] Dragonwagon, Crescent. The Cornbread Gospels. New York, New York: Workman Publishing, 2007.
[4] Moss, Robert F. The True Story of Hushpuppies, a Genuine Carolina Treat. Robert F. Moss, June 25, 2023. https://www.robertfmoss.com/features/The-True-Story-of-Hushpuppies-a-Genuine-Carolina-Treat.
[5] Moss, Robert F. The True Story of Hushpuppies, a Genuine Carolina Treat. Robert F. Moss, June 25, 2023. https://www.robertfmoss.com/features/The-True-Story-of-Hushpuppies-a-Genuine-Carolina-Treat.
[6] Moss, Robert F. The True Story of Hushpuppies, a Genuine Carolina Treat. Robert F. Moss, June 25, 2023. https://www.robertfmoss.com/features/The-True-Story-of-Hushpuppies-a-Genuine-Carolina-Treat.
[7] Powell, Lew. Hushpuppy Corporation of America, R.I.P. NC Miscellany, December 5, 2019. https://blogs.lib.unc.edu/ncm/tag/hushpuppy-corporation-of-america/.
[8] Powell, Lew. Hushpuppy Corporation of America, R.I.P. NC Miscellany, December 5, 2019. https://blogs.lib.unc.edu/ncm/tag/hushpuppy-corporation-of-america/.
[9] Powell, Lew. Hushpuppy Corporation of America, R.I.P. NC Miscellany, December 5, 2019. https://blogs.lib.unc.edu/ncm/tag/hushpuppy-corporation-of-america/.
[10] The Harker’s Island United Methodist Women. Island born and bred: A collection of Harker’s Island Food, Fun, Fact and Fiction. New Bern, North Carolina: Owen G. Dunn, 1987.
[11] Villas, James. The Glory of Southern Cooking. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2007.
[12] The Beginnings. Sanitary Fish Market and Restaurant, February 3, 2020. https://www.sanitaryfishmarket.com/about/.
[13] The New Home of the Sanitary Fish Market and Restaurant, Morehead City, N.C. in Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill.
