Mix together the dry ingredients and the finely cut onion. Break in the egg and beat vigorously. Add the liquid. Form into small patties, round or finger shaped. Drop into smoking fat in which the fish has been fried, until they are a deep brown. Serve hot and at once. Serves 3 or 4

This comes from Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Pulitzer prize for "The Yearling) " Cross Creek Cookery" (ISBN 0-684-71876-6 Scribner's copyright 1942) and she says:

"Hush-puppies are in a class by themselves. They are a concomitant of the hunt, above all of the fishing trip. Fresh-caught fried fish without hush puppies are as man without woman, a beautiful woman without kindness, law without policeman. The story goes that they derived their name from old fishing and hunting expeditions, when the white folks ate to repletion, the Negro help ate beyond repletion, and the hunting dogs already fed, smelled the delectable odors of human rations and howled for things they scented. Negro cook or white sportsman tossed the remaining cornmeal patties to the dogs, calling, "Hush, puppies!"- and the dogs, devouring them, could ask for no more of life, and hushed."

Posted to the BBQ List on June 11, 1998 by James A. Whitten <bigjim@atlantic.net>