Hey y'all,
Have you ever wondered about the etymology of hush puppies? Well, when I stopped at Cracker Barrel after my state swim meet yesterday, I got hush puppies with my dinner and I wondered why they had such a curious, random name. So tonight, instead of going to bed and setting myself up for success on my stats test tomorrow morning, I looked up the origin of "hush puppies." It turns out there are 2 possible explanations for the origin of the term "hush-puppies" - one is that soldiers would throw fried cornbread to their dogs when they heard their enemies approaching - to "hush the puppies", so to speak. The other explanation is much more out there and kind of gross - and sad - if you ask me. In the south, salamanders are named "water dogs" or "water puppies." Poor people would eat salamanders fried in cornmeal, but this food was called "hush puppies" because no one wanted to hear about people eating salamanders in polite conversation. I thought this was sad, but also really funny (maybe it's because I'm totally exhausted...) Anyway, I'm super glad modern hush puppies don't have squishy salamanders inside them! Hope y'all enjoyed the etymology of hush puppies!
Sources: https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/189600.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hushpuppy#:~:text=The%20first%20recorded%20use%20of%20the%20word%20%22hush-puppy%22,to%20%22hush%20the%20puppies%22%20during%20cook-outs%20or%20fish-fries.
1 comment:
I love learning about where words and ideas come from! My mom's great-grandmother was an immigrant from Italy, and her grandmother spoke a few words of Italian. There is this word my entire family uses, "bocca," pronounced boo-ka, that means a product that did not do what you were hoping it would do. Forever, my grandmother thought that it was an actual word, but we looked it up, and it does not exist. We still use it.
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