The Breakfast of Revolutionaries

Last Saturday Elizabeth and I biked down the river to Mount Vernon. This is of course George Washington's estate. The current area is 230 acres of Washington's original 8000 acre farm complex. Of course more than half of that 8000 acres was in woodlot, not active cultivation. It was a totally perfect day for biking and exploring the estate. The mansion house and some of the outbuildings are originals and they have restored or reconstructed a number of others. Pretty well done historical interpretation too.

I'll probably post more about it later. But right now we're talking about breakfast! One of the interpretive things on display was a number of household items from GW's time. And they had recipes! The one I liked the look of best is hoecake's--Washington's favorite breakfast. A Southern word for griddle was apparently "hoe" so therefore a cornmeal pancake was called a hoecake.

Here's mine:

This quote from Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis (his step-granddaughter) describes them:

He rose before sunrise, always wrote or read until 7 in summer or half past seven in winter. His breakfast was then ready--he ate three small mush cakes (Indian meal) swimming in butter and honey, and drank three cups of tea without cream. 

So I actually ate my hoecakes with butter and honey and hot cocoa (spiked with cinnamon) but I feel very revolutionary anyway.

They're tasty! Here's a link to the recipe on the Mount Vernon website: http://www.mountvernon.org/visit-his-estate/plan-your-visit/touring-estate/selected-outbuildings/kitchen
Of course I did not use 8 cups of cornmeal! In fact the handout card I picked up at the show has instructions for 2.5 cups of cornmeal and I scaled that back even more. It also called for white cornmeal and I used fine yellow corn flour instead. I might have to try it with coarser cornmeal too once I finish this batch of dough. They are very filling so that might take a couple of days.