The Old-School Breakfast Food Cowboys Used To Eat

It may not be flashy, fancy, or anywhere near today's breakfast standards, but the humble Johnny cake was what kept hungry cowboys filled for long stretches during cattle drives. It was one of many classic foods cowboys ate back in the day, and remains popular all over the world. Johnny cakes are a simple fried cornmeal flatbread. They were cheap, easy to cook over a fire, and most importantly, traveled without spoiling. The recipe came together quickly in a hot skillet with cornmeal, milk, flour, and salt. Like pancakes, cowboys enjoyed sweet and savory variations, eating them alongside bacon at breakfast, crumbling them into stews, or dousing them with molasses when available.

While making these cakes is simple, their name and origin are a bit controversial, depending on who you ask. Most agree that corn-growing Indigenous tribes, specifically the Shawnee and Narragansett, first taught Europeans how to make them, starting in the 1600s. Some historians say the Johnny cake moniker came from a colonial mispronunciation of "Shawnee cakes," named after the New England tribe. Others say the term derived from janiken, a Native American word for corn. Cornmeal cakes also earned the name "hoe cake" in the late 1700s, as they were prepared on the blade of a farming hoe. They were also called "journey cakes," since they were an easy, portable snack that could be carried for long trips.

Johnny cakes helped generations of cowboys endure long days on dusty cattle drives in a chuck wagon. But western wranglers and cattle drivers weren't the only ones enjoying these simple cornmeal cakes. Johnny cakes have been a part of the culinary heritage of New England, the South, and the Caribbean for centuries. New England's version is thinner, made with white cornmeal, and, of all the places in that region, it is most iconic in Rhode Island. The cakes are a beloved staple eaten by locals at any time of day and in a variety of ways.

The cornmeal creations are taken so seriously in Rhode Island that, for years, there's been debate over what constitutes an authentic recipe. Such a fierce debate, that the state passed a law in the 1920s about what was considered a true "Johnny cake." The cornmeal brand of choice there is Kenyon's, known as the world's largest seller of johnny cake mix, which is produced by a local mill dating back to 1886. 

Southern states still call them hoe cakes. There, they make them with buttermilk, honey, or bacon drippings. Caribbean islands like Jamaica traditionally make them sphere-shaped, and they're fried and slightly sweet.