hoecake

English

Etymology

hoe +‎ cake, since it was often cooked on a hoe (not the gardening implement).

Noun

hoecake (plural hoecakes)

1. (dated, Southern US) A type of cornbread or cornmeal cake, made with water and salt. It was originally baked before the fire or in the ashes on a type of iron pan called a hoe; in modern times, it is fried in cooking oil in a skillet.

   In Jean Fritz's children's book George Washington's Breakfast, the protagonist finds out that George Washington may have eaten hoecakes for breakfast.

See also

• johnnycake

References

• “hoecake”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1948) Cross Creek, →ISBN, page 219.