Johnnycake, ashcake, battercake, corn cake, journey cake, corn pone or hoe cake all are regional names for cornmeal flatbread. In the South this mixture of cornmeal, salt and water, with milk sometimes, and fried, is most often referred to as hoe cake; if you venture north, more than likely it’s johnnycake. During the Civil War the Southern armies survived many battles living on hoe cakes, while the Northern armies ate a lot of johnnycake.

Recently at the Piankatank Ruritan Club building in Mathews, the Civil War came alive. The Lane-Armistead Camp #1772 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans held a two-day educational observance of the war’s sesquicentennial. One of its events showed how hoe cakes were made and cooked.

Walter Scott Hunley was camp cook. Using an aged iron griddle, one most likely the Rebels could have used, with his own mixture (the cornmeal he had ground from the corn he had raised), Walter treated those passing by, on their way to church services or just visiting the camp, delicious, hot hoe cakes.

Now, don’t think it’s exaggeration by calling them delicious; they really were. One was not enough. Walter puts a little sugar in his mixture. To show how the hoe cake possibly got its name, Walter displayed a cake on an old tobacco hoe blade which had once been owned by Miss Sally Billups, a slave in her younger days.

The Civil War forever changed the way the South ate. Families and soldiers alike had to do with what they had. The Union Army blockaded food and seed from reaching the South by road, train or ship. Soldiers in particular had to scrounge what they could to keep up enough strength to continue fighting. Official Confederate Army food reserves were often low and it was then soldiers had to subsist on what they could find. Two of the basics were hoe cakes and ramrod biscuits.

The term hoe cake first occurred in 1745 when used by American writers such as Joel Barlow and Washington Irving. Often written as hoecakes up until the Civil War, they were mostly food of slaves. It is believed, although not confirmed, that hoe cake got its name from the way the slaves cooked their cakes during the day while working the fields. They cooked on a shovel or hoe held to an open fire. Hoes designed for cotton fields were large and flat with a hole for the long handle to slide through; the blade would be removed and placed over fire just as you would a griddle. According to President George Washington’s step-granddaughter, Nelly Custis Lewis, Washington liked to rise with the sun, read or write until 7:15 then sneak downstairs for his favorite breakfast of "three small hoe cakes."

Hoe cakes are still a popular part of Southern food ways. There are as many different recipes for this Southern treat as there are names for it.

Information on hoe cakes came from "Cook’s Companion," "Let Them Eat Journey Cake," "How The Hoe Cake Got Its Name," and "Civil War Recipes."