Backcountry Cuisine: Cornmeal Mush

Cornmeal mush dates from the early settlement of colonial America and is generally credited to the Scottish and Scotch-Irish settlers who were accustomed to making oatmeal porridge in their native lands.  Oatmeal porridge - - we usually call it simply "oatmeal" - - is a simple dish made by cooking oat groats in water with a bit of salt.  The Backcountry settlers adapted this simple recipe to produce cornmeal mush.  There are numerous recipes for making cornmeal mush; I'll lay out the basics and you can make it more complicated of you wish.

CORNMEAL MUSH 

Equipment:   Suitable pan (cast iron, teflon-coated aluminum, etc.), wooden spoon, measuring cup, glass or stoneware bowl.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup cornmeal

2 - 3 cups water

pinch to 1/2-tsp salt

PROCESS:  

Measure the cornmeal into a bowl, then slowly add 1/2 cup water, stirring until the cornmeal is thoroughly wet.  Measure the water, less 1/2 cup, into the pan, add salt, and start it heating.  When the water begins to boil, stir in the pre-wetted corn meal.  Bring to a boil, then cut down to a simmer and cook and stir until the corn meal has thickened.

How much water to use varies; the quicker you cook the cornmeal, the less you need; I recommend cooking at a very slow simmer, which requires more.  I have seen recipes with a 4-to-1 ratio of water to cornmeal; 2-to-1 seems to be the minimum.  You can, of course, add the cornmeal dry to the boiling water, but be careful of clumping and be aware that this will lengthen cooking time.

Hot cornmeal mush can be served like hot oatmeal.  Typical additions include butter and sugar, or butter and ground pepper, or sugar and cream, or crumbled pieces of bacon.

FRIED CORNMEAL MUSH

This variation starts with making a batch of cornmeal mush, which is then allowed to cool.  To make Johnny Cakes, mix 1 cup of warm milk, 1 egg, and 1 - 2 teaspoons of sugar in a bowl, then stir in cooled cornmeal mush, blending until smooth; heat some cooking oil in an iron skillet; then use a large spoon to drop the "cakes" into the skillet, cooking until browned top and bottom.

For fried cornmeal mush, let the cooked mush cool a bit and then pour it into a bowl or loaf pan lined with waxed paper and refrigerate until well-chilled.  The chilled mush is then turned over (carefully) onto a plate or cutting board, freed from the waxed paper, and cut into half-inch slices.  Heat some cooking oil or (more traditional) bacon drippings in a cast-iron pan; gently lift the slices of cornmeal mush into the pan, using a spatula, and brown on both sides.  Customarily served with bacon and eggs, and is also good with butter and hot syrup.

Comments

[imctwe]

Cornmeal mush dates from the early settlement of colonial America and is generally credited to the Scottish and Scotch-Irish settlers who were accustomed to making oatmeal porridge in their native lands.
TRUE, but it is older than that in the same area.

No one has found any "Johnny" after whom the cakes made from left-over cornmeal mush. That is because all the many johnnies had no lock on the origin of them.

European people are famous for distorting Indian terms and making them their own, and that is almost what they did in this case.

The earliest trappers and others who lived off the land as they roamed the "west," learned to imitate the local Indians, who generally knew how to stay alive on the local produce. and one of the first adaptations they made of Indian ways was to make food to travel on from the plentiful dried corn, just as war parties and trading parties have done long before they ever saw a White man.

The English speaking frontiersmen named these cold cakes of cook meal that they survived on while traveling, or when wintering with Indians, Shawnee Cakes.

Immediately after the two sets of western people learned to fight each other rather than remain at peace, they did away with Shawnee Cakes as a name for their new food. Johnny sounded close enough to work, so by the time there were large bodies of troops to feed as they fought Indians and later, the British, the name, Johnny cakes was so well established that it became part of the lore of the soldiers in the Wawah of Noathan Aggreshun. Cooked rations usually amounted to cooked fat pork and some kind of bread. With wheat harder to find or use than corn, the well known Johnny Cake was a mainstay. Hoecake was much appreciated, but not as plentiful.

This name survived until a modern cookie maker named a new creation, Johnny Cakes, and they became popular in the part of the world where I was raised when used to make a banana and peanut butter sandwich between to Johnny Cakes. Bu this time, it was almost totally forgotten that this was another of the large treasury of gifts we took from the Indians who were here before us.
One would be amazed to know what we appropriated from those wild people that we had so little respect for as we pushed them aside and took their land.

[Jay Henderson]

I've read about the possible "Shawnee cakes" derivation for Johnny cakes; and also, I've read that the name derived from "Journey cakes," the idea being that you could easily carry the basic, dried ingredients with you on a journey through the wilderness. I don't know of any historic (pre-Civil War) references for either story, although I admit I haven't really borne down on them; one of them could be true (I'd go with Shawnee cakes as the more likely) but they could be back-fabulations, tales thought up in more recent times to provide an explanation for a term whose origin has been lost.

Whatever you do, don't say "hoecakes" around Don Imus . . . .