Johnny Cake
The Rev. Irving E. Lowery
October 10, 2012
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Johnny Cake (Johnnie Cake, Journey Cake, Shawnee Cake)
Recipe is from “Life on the Old Plantation in Ante-Bellum Days” (1911) by the Rev. Irving E. Lowery, former slave, South Carolina.
“It was not baked in an oven nor in a stove, but before the fire. A board was made out of oak, hickory or ash wood. It was about 6 inches wide and 12 inches long, and highly polished. The ingredients of the johnnie cake were cornmeal and sweet potatoes for flour, butter for lard and pure sweet milk for water. I think eggs were also used and some other seasoning, which I cannot now recall. These things were carefully mixed in and then the dough was spread out over the johnnie cake board and placed on the hearth before an oak fire. The board was slightly tilted so as to throw the cake squarely before the fire. It would soon ‘brown,’ as they said, and when Granny pronounced it done, the very sight, to say nothing of the odor, would make anybody’s mouth water.”