Peanut Butter; Tallahassee Hush Puppies; Pop Doodles

Bapopik at AOL.COM Bapopik at AOL.COM
Thu Aug 3 02:52:07 UTC 2000


PEANUT BUTTER (continued)

     As everyone surely knows, "peanut butter" was invented at the 1904 St.
Louis World's Fair.
     From CONFECTIONERS' AND BAKERS' GAZETTE, 10 May 1899, pg. 33, col. 3:

_HOW PEANUT BUTTER IS MADE._
     A new factory has just been put into operation in Kokomo, Ind., for the
manufacture of butter from peanuts.  For a year or more, Lane Brothers, of
that city, have been working on a process of making butter from the peanut to
compete with the product of the farm cow, and have succeeded in producing the
desired article.  At the present price of the nuts the butter can be sold at
15 cents per pound.
     The process of manufacture is no secret.  The nuts, after the hulls are
removed, are carefully handpicked and faulty kernels removed.  They are then
roasted in a large rotary oven.  Again they are gone over by hand for the
removal of scorched grains.  The nuts are then put through a mill and ground
as fine as the finest flour, the natural oil in the grains giving it the
appearance and consistency of putty as it leaves the mill, except that it is
more of an orange color.  By the addition of filtrated water, to reduce it to
a more pliable state, the butter is complete; no other ingredient, not even
salt, being used.  It never grows rancid, and keeps in any climate.  It is
put up in one, two, five, ten, twenty-five and one hundred pound tin cans and
sealed.  The new butter is already in great demand at sanitariums and health
resorts.  It is used for all purposes ordinary butter is used, including
shortening and frying.  Physicians pronounce it more healthful than cow
butter, and it is much less expensive.  By the addition of more water a
delicious cream is made, adn, if desired, it can in the same way be reduced
to the consistency of milk.  The new butter factory is located but a few rods
from a large dairy barn and is running in opposition to it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
TALLAHASSEE HUSH PUPPIES (continued)

     Here's another Florida "hush puppy" hit--with "Tallahassee" attached to
the name of the dish.
     From THE SOUTHERN COOK BOOK OF FINE OLD RECIPES (Culinary Arts Press,
P.O. Box 915, Reading, PA, 1939), pg. 30, col. 1:

     _Tallahassee Hush Puppies_
     Embodied in the title of this recipe is a most interesting story.
     Years ago (in some sections it is still the custom) the negroes of
Tallahassee, Florida, that quaint southern capital, would congregate on warm
fall evenings for cane grindings.  Some of them would feed the sugar cane to
a one-mule treadmill while others poured the juice into a large kettle where
it was boiled to sugar.  After their work was completed, they would gather
around an open fire, over which was suspended an iron pot in which fish and
corn pones were cooked in fat.
     The negroes were said to have a certain way of making these corn pones
which were unusually delicious and appetizing.  While the food was sizzling
in the pot, the darkies would engage in rather weird conversations,
spellbinding each other with "tall" stories of panther and bear hunts.  On
the outer edge of the circle of light reflected by the fire would sit their
hounds, their ears pricked for strange sounds and their noses raised to catch
a whiff of the savory odor of the frying fish and the pones.  If the talking
ceased for a moment, a low whine of hunger from the dogs would attract the
attention of the men, and subconsciously a hand would reach for some of the
corn pone which had been placed on a slab of bark to cool.  The donor would
break off a piece of the pone and toss it to a hungry dog, with the abstract
murmur, "Hush, puppy!"
     The effect of this gesture on the hounds was always instantaneous and
the negroes attributed the result to the remarkable flavor of what eventually
became known as "The Tallahassee Hush Puppy."
     2 cups corn meal
     2 teaspoons baking powder
     1 teaspoon salt
     1 1/2 cups sweet milk
     1/2 cup water
     1 large onion, chopped fine
     Sift the dry ingredients together and add the milk and water.  Stir in
the chopped onion.  Add more meal or milk as may be necessary to form a soft
but workable dough.  With the hands, mold pieces of the dough into pones
(oblong cakes, about 5 inches long and 3 inches wide, and about 3/4 of an
inch thick).  Fry in deep hot fat or oil until well browned.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
POP DOODLES (continued)

     These appear to be "Snickerdoodles" under yet another name.
     From COOK BOOK (Issued by the Women of the WETHERSFIELD CONGREGATION
CHURCH, 1930)(State?--ed.), pg. 55(?):

     _POP DOODLES_
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tblsp. butter
2 cups flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
     Bake in shallow tin, sprinkle a little granulated sugar and cinnamon on
top just before baking.  When served cut into squares.
Mrs. Edward Deming



More information about the Ads-l mailing list