Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-04-18
II Is said in the Old Dominion that,

It Is said in the Old Dominion that,
DE way TO bake hoe cake.
bto slap u on your foot
And hold it TO the FIRE"
THAT IL Q highly sensible piece Of verse.
though most people nowadays don't know what
il means" said Prof. Otis 7. Mason TO n writer
for TIE STAR "For that matter, there are few
persons in this generation who know how q
real hoe cake is made. II Is simply mixture
Of corn meal with water and little grease. fat
tened out and stood up before the fire on the
back Of blade of hoe. The
old-fashioned hoe for farming pur-
poses was bigger and clumsier
instrument than the modern garden tool and
its blade served admirably for a griddle on the
hearth. In the old days the negroes used to
sleep commonly in their cabins lying on the
floor with their feet TO the fire. and the joke of
the poem is in the notion of the old NANNY 20
set up cake against the sole OF every bare foot
and SO do the cooking, the bottom OF the farm
hands pedal extremity being supposedly inn
| pervious to heat
ZOE cAKs AND ASH CAKE.
THE hoe cake is an institution peculiarly
associated with the old-time negroes, who
doubtless invented it. as they did many other
| famous dishes Of the plantation. They all sur
viye to this day among the coored people. An
other of them is con pone,' made of meal and
| sour milk, with a little shortening. 1t was
cooked in a Dutch oven--a big pan on legs
with a cover to il that was set among
the burning Goals in the fireplace and covered
up with the Goals also. When il was done the
thing was to transfer il TO a dish without turn
ing IL over, and this the good cook accom-
plished by taking of the lid. Selling the pan by
the handle and throwing the cake up in the
air so that IL revolyed in it's descent and fell
| upon the platter all ready TO serve.
Ash cake was the same thing as hoe cake,
only that il was cooked in the hot ashes, in
closed between two cabbage leaves or corn
shucks. When il was done any specks of ashes
that might appear were blown away. and the
dellcacy, properly buttered, is q morsel for the
gods. Corn mush. cooked in a pot that
hung from crane over the fire, was an
other favorite negro dish on the planta-
ton, but most appreciated of all was
hominy. An old colored woman said
| to me the other day: Mars Mason, dar amt no
such hominy now as dar used to be- / am de-
cidedly of her opinion. The negroes used to
make II by soaking the whole corn in a weak
solution of I've, which removed the hard outer
coat from the kernels and left only the soft and
delicious pulp. Nowadays the same object is
accomplished on a large scale IN big factories
with the aid of stronger acids The re-
| suit does not taste like the hominy Of
| old. And how delightfully."- the old woman
| used to cook it, After soaking in the I've
the corn kernels were put into cavity dug
out In the end of big log and pounded with
| great pestle until the husks came off The re-
| manning portions of the grain were then boiled
| until, when the mass was rolled out of the pot
each grain stood by itself perfectly done. An
| appropriate accompaniment of the hominy was
| bit of fried smoked bacon. The gravy from
the frying bacon was poured over the hominy,
| the three together-hominy. bacon and gravy
composing the celebrated hog and hominy.'
"Of course. corn not being African veg
1 14.ll ~.
for 1t from thence. Their addiction TO il is ex-
| planned by the fact that corn formed part of
| the regular ration dealt out according TO law to
each slave. Each slave received so much corn
meal per day and SO much bacon. but in the rice
growing regions near the coast the latter vegeta-
BILE took the place OF corn. naturally. My i'm
preston is that in parts near the rivers the
| master was also obliged TO distribute a certain
given quantity of behring's or other fishes
| Where the black-eyed pease grew they were a
chosen negro diet, and they had the advantage
that more of them could be raised on an acre Of
land than of anything else imaginable. OF
| wheat or wheat bread the slaves in the south
| saw little or nothing. Corn was with them the
| staff OF life Some one was telling me yester-
day, though don't know how true it is, that
| among the colored people OF South Carolina
rice and pease are known as Hopping John,
and hominy and pease as Limping Dick
ADDING TO THEIR LARpEB.
| "But the old-tme negro of the south had
many ways Of adding small Injuries to his sim
pie larder. The streams were free for the
| pickaninnies to fish in while their elders were
| working in the fields, and the small 'chilluns'
were accustomed to exercise an ingenious diplo-
macy by making present of the best that they
| caught to the 'missus.' 1t was not their custom,
however, to take all their string up to the house
for the lady to choose from, lest, perhaps, she
| take the whole with thanks; they found it more
| judicious to exhibit merely a portion Of their
luck, leaving the rest hidden for supper that
| evening in the home cabin, and mayhap to
| help out the breakfast the next morning. One
dish in which the folks delighted was catfish
pie, which was made just like chicken pie
| only that catfish used instead Of
the meat of fowl Another deli
Soey was musast pie composed on
occasional luxury. To my mind, if it be true
| that the negro is apt to have propensity for
| chicken stealing, he comes very naturally by it.
You see his own hens on the plantation were
| forever getting mixed up with marsa's so that
| it was very hard to tell which was which, and
when he made a surreptitious visit to marsa' s
| hen roost at night 1t was not to steal, but
merely TO convey away his own property. which
had sought marsas coop and perches by acci-
| dent.
THE 'PossUM.
"There is an old saying about the niger,
the 'possum and the banjo, that the three 60
| eoSSthSi. ~ 40 taSs W eeo WY thc
darkey slave should have been fond of the
| 'possum. Fat meat of any sort was unknown
almost to him. Fat hogs in those times were
| not found in the south and the bacon served
out for rations was pretty much all lean. Now,
the 'possum is a ball of fat and to
| the negro it was q delicious va
riety, furnishing him at the same time
with food. medicine and clothing; for he made
a cap of the animals skin, and the noses of the
| pickaninnies were always creased with the fat
when they had colds. Brer Rabbit likewise was
an addition to the cabin larder on occasions
that were always appreciated. Sometimes he
| was eaten fresh killed, while at others he was
hung up and dried for subsequent consump-
| ton, exciting q watering at the mouths Of
the small fry for weeks perhaps before the time
came for his apotheosis in potpie.
'Of course, each negro family on the plan
tation had its little truck patch behind the
| cabin, from which came many good things in
the way of vegetables, black-eyed pease being
| a chosen product. Concerning the origin Of
| the banjo, by the way, there has been much
| dispute. 1t is not true, as has often been
alleged, that the instrument was brought
| over from Africa in the primitive
shape Of a gourd with strings stretched
| across II. The banjo is in fact, merely de-
1 IA n..s.x