Not Pancakes Or Waffles — Cowboys And Oregon Trail Pioneers Ate This Flatbread For Breakfast

If you could head back to the wagon trails or frontier cattle drives of the 1800s, there's a good chance that breakfast would've had you tucking into a cornmeal flatbread called a johnnycake. On the Oregon Trail, these pancake-adjacent circles were a regular breakfast for travelers heading west, with the cakes sometimes fried in bacon fat and served with coffee. Later that century, cowboys driving cattle may have eaten similarly: Once ranchers started sending chuckwagons (basically a mobile kitchen) out with cowboys, the designated cook would've cooked hot meals in place of pre-prepared or preserved foods like salted meats or hardtack, an unappetizingly rock-hard bread. Cornmeal was a very common ingredient, making johnnycakes (or something similar) fairly likely.

If you're wondering who "Johnny" was, the answer isn't totally clear. It doesn't seem likely to have been a person: One origin story is that it's a corruption of "journey cake" since the bread traveled well in saddlebags; another is that it derives from African-American cooking traditions; and a third is that it comes from "Shawnee cake," referring to one Native tribe from New England. That third option may be more likely: The cakes are considered to have descended from Indigenous cornmeal cooking, which was adopted by colonists after wheat spoiled during their journey to North America or wouldn't grow well in the area.

Although they might look a little like pancakes, johnnycakes aren't meant to be like a smooth and fluffy wheat flour pancake. Instead, expect a faintly sweet corn flavor and a coarser texture with a nearly gritty bite from the cornmeal. Between the crisp edges and softer center, they sit somewhere between fritter and pancake. Making them is simple: Mix white cornmeal and salt with boiling water before cooking them on a hot griddle. 

Much like the North-South debate over cornbread, some johnnycake recipes call for sugar, while others argue that it detracts from the corn flavor. There's also debate about whether you should fry them into thin or thick cakes, or use milk in place of water, and really, there's no single, correct answer here. Johnnycakes can also skew sweet or savory when you serve them. Some top them with butter and maple syrup, molasses, or other sweeteners. Others opt for bacon, or perhaps serve them alongside Southern soul food classics like beans or greens.

You may also see some other names out there for the same or very similar recipes: While "johnnycakes" as a term is more associated with Rhode Island, you'll see "hoecakes" in the South; these are really the same thing. The same goes for "corn pone" — the ingredients and method are very much the same, although some would argue that they're a little thicker. You may also see johnnycakes in Caribbean cuisine — these are a bit different, as they're sometimes deep-fried or baked and use wheat flour instead of corn.