What is a hush puppy anyway? Where are your favorites served? You either love them or hate them, right?
If you’re not a Southerner, you might not understand about hush puppies. They are served with hundreds of our favorite seafood entrees here, and they don’t really need to be ordered in most of our seafood restaurants. The basket just arrives on the table while the meal is being prepared. It usually comes with butter, and sometimes luscious honey butter, for dipping or double dipping.
It’s actually a bite or two of cornbread which is deep fried, while cornbread would ordinarily be baked. They can be baked in tiny muffin tins, but it’s not the traditional cooking method. The hush puppy is sometimes a rough ball shape or else a little stick shape.
The story of our fried bread is that it began as a croquette with an African or Creole cook, and it was named hush puppy when tossed to a whining dog which would be quieted with the treat.
I surmise that it was inexpensive to make from cornmeal mixed with water and fried in grease, thus the ease of feeding it to quiet a dog at a soldier’s campfire or from the kitchen stove.
Today of course, the hush puppy mixture usually includes some flour, egg, milk or buttermilk and possibly other ingredients such as onion or corn; maybe also a touch of garlic powder, seasoned salt, cayenne pepper or chopped jalapeno pepper. The basic batter is similar to a seafood breading used in plenty of our favorite fried fish dishes, again an explanation for the ubiquitous hush puppies being served with so many seafood entrees here.
Where do you eat them? Do you make them? What’s in the best recipe?