"HoeCake"

DATELINE: 4/12/2011
"HOECAKE"

The first time I heard the term "soul food" I had no idea what it was. Then one day I looked in the window of a soul food cafe, and when I saw the menu, I realized that I had been eatin " soul food" most all of my life. Old country folks cooking, like what I grew up on, included fried chicken, turnip greens, black-eyed peas and cornbread, and sometimes the cornbread was hoecakes. Hoecakes is about as southern, and about as country as you can get.

"Southern culture is the "cornerstone" of Southern cuisine. From this culture came one of the main staples of the Southern diet: corn, either ground into meal or limed with an alkaline salt to make hominy. Corn was used to make all kinds of dishes from the familiar cornbread and grits, to moonshine. Cornbread was popular during the Civil War because it was very cheap and could be made in many different sizes and forms. It could be made into high-rising, fluffy loaves or simply fried for a fast meal." Or, even made into Hoecakes.

"According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term hoecake first occurs in 1745. The origin of the name is the method of preparation: field hands often cooked it on a shovel or hoe held to an open flame. Hoes designed for cotton fields were large and flat with a hole for the long handle to slide through; the blade would be removed and placed over a fire much like a griddle."

Now when I was a young man, there was another young man who lived near Nankipooh called "Hoecake". Now Hoecake was just about the meanest man I had ever known. Some say he got his nickname because he was tougher than a three day old hoecake.  At any rate I was scared to death of him, and with good cause. He had at one time cut off a man's nose with a knife for no good reason at all.

Well there was a time when old Hoecake set his eyes on me and said he was gonna whip me like I ain't never been whipped before. Well of course I was scared, and did not know what to do. I had an old 16 gauge shotgun, but it never occurred to me to shoot him, I just hid out every time I saw him coming. After a couple of months Hoecake found somebody else to be mad at, and he never bothered me again.

Now some may say I was a coward, but I knew I couldn't whip him, and I was not goin to shoot him, so the best plan seemed to be, not to be around where ever he was. It seems like there is a lot of folks who would rather shoot than wait it out, but I don't think that's a very good policy, even for a country to follow. By the way, last time I heard of Hoecake, he was in federal prison for bank robbery.

"Now, that's the way I see it, and you can tell'um I said so!"

Bascomb Biggers