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Hoe Cake
Moisten fresh Indian meal with cold water and add a little salt; knead your dough well to make it light. Bake on a griddle over a moderate fire, turning it often till well browned on both sides.
Three ingredients and no leavening, so texture depends entirely on how stiff you mix the dough and how patient you are at the griddle.
- Indian mealThis is plain cornmeal, and "fresh" matters: whole-grain meal carries the germ and goes rancid within a few months. Stone-ground white or yellow meal, medium grind, gives the right body; degerminated supermarket cornmeal works but tastes flatter.
- Water and consistencyNo quantity is given. Work in cold water a spoonful at a time until you have a stiff, moldable dough that holds a shape without cracking, roughly 3/4 cup water to 1 cup meal, though grinds absorb differently.
- "Knead well to make it light"Cornmeal has no gluten, so kneading develops nothing in the way it would with wheat. The working most likely just hydrates the meal evenly, which helps the cake hold together when turned. A rest of ten minutes after mixing may do as much as extra working.
- Moderate fireMedium heat, around 350F on an electric griddle. Cornmeal scorches before it cooks through on high heat; the interior needs time to set.
- Shaping and timingPat into flat cakes about half an inch thick and three inches across. Figure 8 to 10 minutes a side, turning as often as needed to keep the crust browning rather than burning.
- Fat on the griddleThe recipe says nothing about greasing the griddle. A film of bacon fat or oil helps with release and with browning.
- YieldOne cup of meal makes four small cakes, enough for two people alongside eggs or greens. Serve hot with butter; they turn dense and dry within the hour.
Hoe cake belongs to the oldest layer of American cornbreads, the family of unleavened water-and-meal cakes cooked on a hot surface, related to ash cake, journey cake and johnnycake, and drawing on Native corn cookery of the Southeast. The name is traditionally explained as cakes baked on the blade of a field hoe held over coals, an account repeated since at least the nineteenth century though rarely documented; "hoe" has also been reported as an old term for a flat iron baking plate, which may be the plainer explanation.