Dobe/Dobie/Doby biscuits

Bapopik at AOL.COM Bapopik at AOL.COM
Fri Oct 20 18:37:26 UTC 2006


Any help on dobe/dobie/doby discuits? Just one ProQuest citation from 1885  
(1874)?
...
...
...
_http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/dobe_also_dobie_doby_
biscuit/_ 
(http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/dobe_also_dobie_doby_biscuit/) 
...
 
Dobe (also Dobie, Doby) Biscuit
 
"Dobe” biscuits (also “dobie” or “doby") are sourdough biscuits. The name 
was  used by the 1870s and is largely of historical interest today. “Dobe” is 
said to  come from “abode” bricks, but the word also might come from “
doughboy.”  


(Historical Dictionary of American Slang, A-G) 
dobe  biscuit, n. Army, a hardtack biscuit. 
1931 1931 R.G. Carter  Border 41 [ref to ca1870]: Our supper at night 
consisted of  broiled wild turkey thighs, larded with bacon slivers, and buffalo 
sweetbreads,  with “doby” biscuits and coffee.   
November 1885, United Service, “Scouting on the ‘Staked Plains’ (Llano  
Estacado) with MacKenzie, in 1874,” pg. 534: 
...and the command had its  breakfast, for which all hands were ready, so far 
as appetite was concerned,  after the morning ride,—albeit, the breakfast was 
composed of fried bacon,  soldier coffee without milk, and doby biscuits, 
which were discussed and  enjoyed with a relish that many a millionaire might 
envy. 

Texas Home  Cooking 
by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison 
Boston: Harvard  Common Press 
1993 
Pg. 157: 
Cowboys loved their sourdough biscuits so  much they nicknamed them “
doughgods.” When they wanted to nettle the cook, a  common pastime, they might call 
his biscuits “sinkers,” “hot rocks,” or  “dobies,” the latter a reference to 
the density and weight of adobe bricks. 

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list