Cornbread was on the table at each meal, but it was cooked in different ways: dog bread, milk bread, pone bread, fried bread, molasses bread, and clabber bread, which has a sour taste. The dog bread was put on the table each morning six days a week, cooked in a round cast-iron pan and cut like a pie to serve each person at the table.
2009, Bill Neal, Bill Neal's Southern Cooking[2]:
Dog bread is just about the simplest way to consume cornmeal, short of simply parching it and eating it out of the hand. Served hot, with lots of butter, these crisp griddle cakes have a charm that can pair them well with sophisticated beef and pork roasts.
2009, Brenda Starks Miles, Summer Nights/Dixie Dog Delights: And Other Memories[3]:
I guess the "dog bread" Miss Dora threw into the backyard was too great a treat to walk out on. She made it with hot water instead of milk and it was crusty and brown.
1810, William Dixon, An inquiry into the impolicy of the continuance of the prohibition of distillation from grain in Great-Britain[4]:
A large quantity of the different kinds of damaged meal is annually baked in London into what is called dog-bread, for kennels, &c.
1884, Charles M. Green, The Friend of All: A Cyclopaedia of Practical Information for the Housekeeper, the Gardener, the Farmer, the Artisan, the Business Man, and the Young Folks[5]:
Dog-bread, as Spratt's for instance, is convenient, but not good for regular use.
1910, Gardner Dexter Hiscox, Henley's twentieth century book of recipes, formulas and processes[6], page 265:
Dog bread must be made from good wheat flour, of a medium sort, mixed with 15 or 16 per cent of sweet, dry chopped meat, well baked and dried like pilot bread or crackers.
The best things for dogs are meat — cooked, but a little raw meat at times does the dog good; hominy, dog bread, biscuits, bread, gravy, and in short everything you would eat yourself with the exception of potatoes and sweets. Do not eat dog bread yourself — you might grow a tail and bark.