Cooking hoe cakes on an open fire
About this video
- Author
- Daniel Lunk
- Date created
- 2009
- Duration
- 1:52
- File
- Flash Video
- License
- This video copyright ©2009. Terms of use
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- North Carolina in the New South: Primary sources and readings explore North Carolina in the decades after the Civil War (1870–1900). Topics include changes in agriculture, the growth of cities and industry, the experiences of farmers and mill workers, education, cultural changes, politics and political activism, and the Wilmington Race Riot. (Page 5.11)
- North Carolina History: A Sampler: A sample of the more than 800 pages of our digital textbook for North Carolina history, including background readings, various kinds of primary sources, and multimedia. Also includes an overview of the textbook and how to use it. (Page 8.3)
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Demonstration of cooking hoe cakes outdoors on an open fire. “Hoe cakes” are cakes or breads made of cornmeal, small enough to be cooked on the back of a farmer’s hoe.
Transcript
- Woman (00:09)
- After building our fire, we’re going to let the wood burn down to these hot white ashes. With these hot white ashes, we’re then going to lay bricks on top of the ashes. The bricks will heat up so we can cook some hoe cakes out here.
- Woman (00:29)
- So you take your spoon and just drop it. Just like this.
- Boy (00:33)
- Okay, just anywhere?
- Woman (00:34)
- Yeah.
- Woman (00:40)
- We’re pouring the grease from cooking our ham, we cooked our ham in this pan, I’m pouring the grease left over from that into this pan here so we can fry our hoe cakes up.
- Girl (00:54)
- I’m moving the hot white coals up toward the pan to keep it hotter and to make the hoe cakes cook faster.
- Woman (01:20)
- Very good.
- Man (01:23)
- A lot crispier than **. They taste like pancakes.
- Boy (01:25)
- Mm hm.
- Woman (01:27)
- After we’re done making our hoe cakes, we have to clear out the fire by removing all of the bricks and then we have to let all the fire smolder out to prevent fires from around the house. Now we’ve just got to let these coals cool so that we can put the fire out safely.
