Origin of the term hush Puppy

[Guest guest]

From: http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-hus1.htm

Listed as " Quinion writes about international english from a British

viewpoint.

HUSH PUPPY

From Jim Austin: “Do you know the origin of the American term hush puppy?

Hush puppies are little balls of seasoned, deep-fried dough (usually made

with corn meal), often served as a side dish or appetizer in the South. I’ve

heard two tales about the origin of the name but I don’t know if either one

is true. The first is that Confederate soldiers during the Civil War kept

their dogs quiet while they were cooking by feeding them fried dough balls.

Thus, ‘hush, puppy.’ Considering the hunger and privation prevalent in much

of the Confederate army, this strikes me as probably untrue. The second is

that Cajuns in southern Louisiana used to eat a type of salamander they

called a mud puppy. They weren’t too tasty plain, so folks would dip ’em in

corn meal and fry ’em. Supposedly the term just grew from there. I doubt

that story, too, since my dad’s family is from southern Louisiana, and while

they fry a whole lot of things to eat, salamanders ain’t one of them. Can

you shed any light on the subject?”

I’m glad you told this ignorant Brit what hush puppies are: for a moment I

had a vision of Southerners eating fried shoes.

The salamander story is retold in and ’s The

Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins with some extra information, including

other names for the salamanders of water dog or water puppy. The article

claims that they were hardship food, not something you’d want everybody to

know you were reduced to eating, therefore hush, keep quiet about it. It

does sound rather unlikely as an explanation, I do agree.

The Civil War story is probably an example of folk etymology trying to fix a

definite date on something whose origin is obscure. The phrase isn’t

actually recorded until 1918. That doesn’t rule out a Confederate

association, because the term had probably been around in the spoken

language for decades by then, but I would doubt it goes so far back as that

conflict (The es instead point to the Reconstruction period following

the Civil War, but they don’t give evidence for saying that, though they’re

presumably thinking of the great poverty in the South after the War).

The story that seems to be most accepted is a variation of your second one.

People cooking outdoors would fry up these little cakey bits along with

their other food as a side delicacy and would feed a few to the dogs to keep

them quiet while the humans were eating (Hence “Hush, puppies!” as another

way of saying “Quiet, dogs!”). Whether this happened at a barbecue or a

hunters’ camp depends on who is telling the story.

RE: Charlie...Re: points help,

> please/Long Silvers

>

>

> Nope... me neither. Although I did see that there was a Long Silvers

> when I lived briefly in Hutchinson, KS (but I never went there). There

> aren't any fast food fish places here in NW MN/NE ND. But... can you

> buy lefse in your local grocery store? LOL (I can!)

>

>

>

> > -----Original Message-----

> > From: Charlie..

>

> > Have you not heard of a hushpuppy?

> >

> > Charlie

> >

>

>

>

>