Blue hoe cakes

Tonight I think we will have breakfast and hoe cakes for dinner. When I think of hoe cakes, they bring back fond memories. Growing up in the military, we moved around a lot. That and the fact that my grandparents died when I was very young, meant that I didn't have many memories of them. When I was twelve or so, my Dad retired from the Army and we moved to a tiny town in middle Tennessee, and next door to two of the greatest people that I have ever had the privilege to know. Douglas and Gertrude were a couple in their eighties, without grandchildren of their own. If they ever minded the fact that I was always following them around, they never let on, and Douglas soon became that one person that seemed to think that I could do no wrong. He taught me the finer points of building a scarecrow, shucking corn, an appreciation for the beauty of glass bottles, and the pleasure of a front porch swing on a summer evening. Gertrude also introduced me to Southern cooking,  snapping beans, crafts, and most especially, hoe cakes.


If you have never had a hoe cake, I strongly recommend that you try them. It is has the good qualities of cornbread, with the added benefit of being fried. This is my recipe, but as I don't usually add sugar to my cornbread, you should definitely adjust for your preferences.


  ¼ cup olive oil
  1 large egg
  2 tsp baking powder
  1 tsp salt
  onion- diced and browned (optional)
  1 cup buttermilk or milk
  2 cups cornmeal


I fried these in an enameled cast iron pan with a light coating of bacon grease. Also, I just recently bought organic blue cornmeal, and I used that in this recipe (do not attempt to adjust your monitor, as a blue color is to be expected, LOL).

* I edited the recipe, because I had mis-typed some of the amounts.