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Is the reference to The Sopranos all that relevent? I say dump it.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.236.216.252 ( talk • contribs)
Johnnycakes are an unleavened pancake. They are not bread. So I changed the stub category back to the correct stub. I also generally rewrote the article and took out all of the passive phrasing. Carmela Soprano 17:39, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Isn't it also eaten in the English-speaking Caribbean? Badagnani ( talk) 06:05, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Unconstructive and somewhat inflammatory
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This is actually probably the worst single article on the entire site. 1. It’s “Johnny Cakes” (two words). 2. They were popularized by their extensive use by Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War, irregardless where they may (or were NOT) created. It’s time to delete it all and start all over again. 65.102.19.148 ( talk) 02:34, 17 February 2009 (UTC) A REDDSON
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In the book 'Fairy Tales from the British Isles' by Amabel Williams-Ellis, published in 1960 there is a fairy tale 'Johnny-Cake' and she makes the annotation that acknowledges that the tale was collected via the US but that its origin is British. She makes reference to a Scottish version as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samsoot ( talk • contribs) 11:28, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
There is an old ballad 'Four little Johnny Cakes' and it is more likely to be of British origin than American. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samsoot ( talk • contribs) 11:28, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
Please, somebody, change the title to Johnnycake! http://www.aolsvc.merriam-webster.aol.com/dictionary/johnnycake, http://www.wordnik.com/words/johnnycake, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/johnnycake. Yopienso ( talk) 06:39, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
The article says that the origin of the food is probably Native American, which seems fairly likely, that the earliest attestation of the term is from South Carolina, that it is the "'cornerstone' of Southern cuisine," yet the second paragraph of the intro has "The modern jonnycake... originated in Rhode Island." Is there a difference between a Rhode Island jonnycake and a Southern one? A "regular" and a "modern"? Otherwise it seems that the claim it "originated" in Rhode Island is local cuisine puffery, especially if the food is definitely American Indian in origin. TuckerResearch ( talk) 18:17, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Move. Jafeluv ( talk) 12:10, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Jonnycake → Johnnycake – See talk above - it is the common spelling in English. TuckerResearch ( talk) 21:36, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
The West Indies section (formerly Jamaica) says johnnycakes are known by an alternative name and are made with flour, etc. Doesn't that just mean it's a different item completely? I hear in Canada they call ham sandwiches "turkey sandwiches" and make them with turkey instead of ham. -- Rhododendrites ( talk) 22:55, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
Google Johnnycake and see what images come up - 99.9999% of them show very tasty examples of cornmeal goodness. Now, look at the photo at the top of this article - I wouldn't feed my dog the things pictured here (not that he'd eat them either)... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.51.66.32 ( talk) 22:44, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Ha! I tend to agree. I did a couple searches for an available image (meeting WP licensing requirements) and the only better one I could find is one from the same series as this one but with a url overlaid on the bottom. Since it's ok to modify, it could be cropped out but I don't have means to do so. By all means go for it--or better yet, fry up some johnnycakes and snap an even better photo to upload to the Commons! -- Rhododendrites ( talk) 22:06, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
First sentence: "Johnnycake (also jonnycake, johnny cake, journey cake, shawnee cake and johnny bread) is a cornmeal flatbread that was an early American staple food and is prepared on the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to Jamaica.[1]" Infobox: "main_ingredient = Cornmeal."
So why are there "variations" that share no ingredients (other than salt) with this johnnycake. Most importantly, wouldn't replacing cornmeal with flour completely disqualify something? Just because something is known by some people or in one recipe book under a certain name doesn't mean it should share that namesake's article -- it should instead be an "other name" in the appropriate article for what that term signifies.
For example: If a drink of vodka mixed with orange juice is known as a "Pina Colada" in Iceland, it should say so in the article for Screwdriver (cocktail) not in the article for Pina colada.
I removed the unsourced "variations," which in addition to not making sense amount to OR. Now removing others that seem to have no connection other than the name. From a Wikipedia standpoint that seems to make sense, but perhaps someone with more knowledge of culinary history and/or regional cuisines would disagree... The only relevant "variation" was for "New England" which was just copied and pasted text from earlier in the article. -- Rhododendrites ( talk) 04:21, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
I haven't had much to do with this article for quite a while, but I don't think that simply because the Australians have a flatbread called johnnycake, or that other groups do, that we can assume that there is a 'family' of related flatbreads. We need sources showing the relationships, otherwise they shouldn't be in this article. This [10] might do, but finding "At one time, maybe one in four of all Australian housekeepers or hutkeepers made their own damper or bread. ... If sugar was added, and maybe a handful of dried fruit, it was more often called a johnnycake or brownie." worries me, that seems too far from American johnnycake to be sure the word is related - see also [11] for "johnnycake damper" made with flour and raisins. Ah, 1862 in Australia, johnnycakes as soda cakes [12] p.217. Austral English: A Dictionary of Australasian Words, Phrases and Usages says the word is of American origin. [13]. This Australian source [14] says it originated in America. That's probably enough.
And although the use of the word is earlier, the first recipe in an American written cookbook seems to be that in American Cookery by Amelia Simmons written in 1786:
I've found:
Same name, but clearly not related. Found a recipe for Australian johnnycake [16] - except there's nothing Australian about it. This Australian source [17] refers to something called a johnnycake or puffaloon made without cornmeal. A bit of a mess but that's cookery. Sorry for the disorganisation of my post. Dougweller ( talk) 17:27, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
I disagree entirely with the idea that other things called Johnnycake should not be on the Johnnycake page. In order to be useful anything called a Johnnycake should be listed on the Johnnycake page with an explanation of how it is different from the other things called Johnnycakes. Using one of the examples above: if the people of Iceland call a drink of vodka and orange juice a piña colada than that information should be on both the piña colada page and the Screwdriver page. The purpose of this site is to be informative not to act as a gatekeeper of "correct usage", descriptive not prescriptive! Sheherazahde ( talk) 03:39, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't want to get into an argument about this. Maybe the topic needs it's own section in the article. But right now two sections contradict each other and both have citations.
"Myth" seems a bit pejorative. Can we say "It is still widely believed that hoe cakes used to cooked on the backs of hoes, but new research indicates that large flat kitchen skillets were sometimes called hoes and there is no testimony of anyone actually cooking hoe cakes on garden hoes."? Sheherazahde ( talk) 03:55, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
This whole section seems not to relate to the other part of the article. It concentrates on southern cuisine, when johnycakes are mostly thought of as New England food. If there is a southern Johnycake, then it needs to be explained as well. It's really an entry on corn... The info is not really correct either as corn was a common food from New England to the South, especially early on. In the south it became more important later because wheat was hard to grow there, and during the Civil War, it could not be easily imported. Corn was also extremely important in the Southwest - considered sacred by Native American tribes. Actually Native Americans, who practiced agriculture grew corn in many regions of North America. It continues to be important with the Mexican American culture as well. Of course the Midwest is also corn country. And then what about the rest of Central and South America? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki-dog ( talk • contribs) 17:29, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
I'm having a great deal of difficulty following the lengthy chopped-up quote in this section. In its edited form, it is not only confusing but non-grammatical. To me, this section should be gone through for useful information about the subject of the article and the rest of it discarded. Ramseyman ( talk) 20:01, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
The Dominican "yaniqueque" (the spanish phonetic spelling of how Dominicans pronounce the English "Johnnycake") also varies within the country. Although in some parts of the country they are small fried flour cakes, in other parts they are flat, circular, leavened loaves of wheat flour, usually slightly sweet and baked with fennel seeds. They are sold along the road or beach by Haitians and Dominicans. Imamime ( talk) 13:32, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
I am very familiar with the Australian campfire soda-bread "damper", but had never heard, or even read in older literature, of johnnycake in this context. After stumbling upon this article, with it's surprising claim, I was curious to check out the reference [1] given for this text in the Variations section:
===Australia===
In Australia, "Johnnycake" refers to a quick bread made with flour rather than cornmeal; the cakes are baked in the hot ashes of a fire or fried in fat on a skillet. |
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Just because I've never heard of it, no-one I've asked has ever heard of it, and none of my (Australian) camping catering books refer to it, doesn't mean it's not true, I know. But I really think this is a case of
But how to prove a negative? As a slight bit of support, I refer to the damper article, which is about the same foodstuff as described above, and does not mention the term "johnnycake". The Morris source shows twenty occurrences [18] for "damper", including some at the "johhnycake" part. These mentions seem much more substantive than the johnnycake one. Also, the work is very old, and I am unable to find any other source that mentions something called "johnnycake" in Australia. Please comment, but if no-one objects, I think this should be removed, (as even if the name is, or was, used in AUS, it's really referring to a quite different food - it's more akin to soda or quick breads, as even the source and the article text make clear). Or at least, it should say it "was once" a term for a quick bread, rather then "is". 180.216.180.68 ( talk) 06:33, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
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References
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Is the reference to The Sopranos all that relevent? I say dump it.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.236.216.252 ( talk • contribs)
Johnnycakes are an unleavened pancake. They are not bread. So I changed the stub category back to the correct stub. I also generally rewrote the article and took out all of the passive phrasing. Carmela Soprano 17:39, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Isn't it also eaten in the English-speaking Caribbean? Badagnani ( talk) 06:05, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Unconstructive and somewhat inflammatory
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---|
This is actually probably the worst single article on the entire site. 1. It’s “Johnny Cakes” (two words). 2. They were popularized by their extensive use by Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War, irregardless where they may (or were NOT) created. It’s time to delete it all and start all over again. 65.102.19.148 ( talk) 02:34, 17 February 2009 (UTC) A REDDSON
|
In the book 'Fairy Tales from the British Isles' by Amabel Williams-Ellis, published in 1960 there is a fairy tale 'Johnny-Cake' and she makes the annotation that acknowledges that the tale was collected via the US but that its origin is British. She makes reference to a Scottish version as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samsoot ( talk • contribs) 11:28, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
There is an old ballad 'Four little Johnny Cakes' and it is more likely to be of British origin than American. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samsoot ( talk • contribs) 11:28, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
Please, somebody, change the title to Johnnycake! http://www.aolsvc.merriam-webster.aol.com/dictionary/johnnycake, http://www.wordnik.com/words/johnnycake, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/johnnycake. Yopienso ( talk) 06:39, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
The article says that the origin of the food is probably Native American, which seems fairly likely, that the earliest attestation of the term is from South Carolina, that it is the "'cornerstone' of Southern cuisine," yet the second paragraph of the intro has "The modern jonnycake... originated in Rhode Island." Is there a difference between a Rhode Island jonnycake and a Southern one? A "regular" and a "modern"? Otherwise it seems that the claim it "originated" in Rhode Island is local cuisine puffery, especially if the food is definitely American Indian in origin. TuckerResearch ( talk) 18:17, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Move. Jafeluv ( talk) 12:10, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Jonnycake → Johnnycake – See talk above - it is the common spelling in English. TuckerResearch ( talk) 21:36, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
The West Indies section (formerly Jamaica) says johnnycakes are known by an alternative name and are made with flour, etc. Doesn't that just mean it's a different item completely? I hear in Canada they call ham sandwiches "turkey sandwiches" and make them with turkey instead of ham. -- Rhododendrites ( talk) 22:55, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
Google Johnnycake and see what images come up - 99.9999% of them show very tasty examples of cornmeal goodness. Now, look at the photo at the top of this article - I wouldn't feed my dog the things pictured here (not that he'd eat them either)... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.51.66.32 ( talk) 22:44, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Ha! I tend to agree. I did a couple searches for an available image (meeting WP licensing requirements) and the only better one I could find is one from the same series as this one but with a url overlaid on the bottom. Since it's ok to modify, it could be cropped out but I don't have means to do so. By all means go for it--or better yet, fry up some johnnycakes and snap an even better photo to upload to the Commons! -- Rhododendrites ( talk) 22:06, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
First sentence: "Johnnycake (also jonnycake, johnny cake, journey cake, shawnee cake and johnny bread) is a cornmeal flatbread that was an early American staple food and is prepared on the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to Jamaica.[1]" Infobox: "main_ingredient = Cornmeal."
So why are there "variations" that share no ingredients (other than salt) with this johnnycake. Most importantly, wouldn't replacing cornmeal with flour completely disqualify something? Just because something is known by some people or in one recipe book under a certain name doesn't mean it should share that namesake's article -- it should instead be an "other name" in the appropriate article for what that term signifies.
For example: If a drink of vodka mixed with orange juice is known as a "Pina Colada" in Iceland, it should say so in the article for Screwdriver (cocktail) not in the article for Pina colada.
I removed the unsourced "variations," which in addition to not making sense amount to OR. Now removing others that seem to have no connection other than the name. From a Wikipedia standpoint that seems to make sense, but perhaps someone with more knowledge of culinary history and/or regional cuisines would disagree... The only relevant "variation" was for "New England" which was just copied and pasted text from earlier in the article. -- Rhododendrites ( talk) 04:21, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
I haven't had much to do with this article for quite a while, but I don't think that simply because the Australians have a flatbread called johnnycake, or that other groups do, that we can assume that there is a 'family' of related flatbreads. We need sources showing the relationships, otherwise they shouldn't be in this article. This [10] might do, but finding "At one time, maybe one in four of all Australian housekeepers or hutkeepers made their own damper or bread. ... If sugar was added, and maybe a handful of dried fruit, it was more often called a johnnycake or brownie." worries me, that seems too far from American johnnycake to be sure the word is related - see also [11] for "johnnycake damper" made with flour and raisins. Ah, 1862 in Australia, johnnycakes as soda cakes [12] p.217. Austral English: A Dictionary of Australasian Words, Phrases and Usages says the word is of American origin. [13]. This Australian source [14] says it originated in America. That's probably enough.
And although the use of the word is earlier, the first recipe in an American written cookbook seems to be that in American Cookery by Amelia Simmons written in 1786:
I've found:
Same name, but clearly not related. Found a recipe for Australian johnnycake [16] - except there's nothing Australian about it. This Australian source [17] refers to something called a johnnycake or puffaloon made without cornmeal. A bit of a mess but that's cookery. Sorry for the disorganisation of my post. Dougweller ( talk) 17:27, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
I disagree entirely with the idea that other things called Johnnycake should not be on the Johnnycake page. In order to be useful anything called a Johnnycake should be listed on the Johnnycake page with an explanation of how it is different from the other things called Johnnycakes. Using one of the examples above: if the people of Iceland call a drink of vodka and orange juice a piña colada than that information should be on both the piña colada page and the Screwdriver page. The purpose of this site is to be informative not to act as a gatekeeper of "correct usage", descriptive not prescriptive! Sheherazahde ( talk) 03:39, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't want to get into an argument about this. Maybe the topic needs it's own section in the article. But right now two sections contradict each other and both have citations.
"Myth" seems a bit pejorative. Can we say "It is still widely believed that hoe cakes used to cooked on the backs of hoes, but new research indicates that large flat kitchen skillets were sometimes called hoes and there is no testimony of anyone actually cooking hoe cakes on garden hoes."? Sheherazahde ( talk) 03:55, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
This whole section seems not to relate to the other part of the article. It concentrates on southern cuisine, when johnycakes are mostly thought of as New England food. If there is a southern Johnycake, then it needs to be explained as well. It's really an entry on corn... The info is not really correct either as corn was a common food from New England to the South, especially early on. In the south it became more important later because wheat was hard to grow there, and during the Civil War, it could not be easily imported. Corn was also extremely important in the Southwest - considered sacred by Native American tribes. Actually Native Americans, who practiced agriculture grew corn in many regions of North America. It continues to be important with the Mexican American culture as well. Of course the Midwest is also corn country. And then what about the rest of Central and South America? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki-dog ( talk • contribs) 17:29, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
I'm having a great deal of difficulty following the lengthy chopped-up quote in this section. In its edited form, it is not only confusing but non-grammatical. To me, this section should be gone through for useful information about the subject of the article and the rest of it discarded. Ramseyman ( talk) 20:01, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
The Dominican "yaniqueque" (the spanish phonetic spelling of how Dominicans pronounce the English "Johnnycake") also varies within the country. Although in some parts of the country they are small fried flour cakes, in other parts they are flat, circular, leavened loaves of wheat flour, usually slightly sweet and baked with fennel seeds. They are sold along the road or beach by Haitians and Dominicans. Imamime ( talk) 13:32, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
I am very familiar with the Australian campfire soda-bread "damper", but had never heard, or even read in older literature, of johnnycake in this context. After stumbling upon this article, with it's surprising claim, I was curious to check out the reference [1] given for this text in the Variations section:
===Australia===
In Australia, "Johnnycake" refers to a quick bread made with flour rather than cornmeal; the cakes are baked in the hot ashes of a fire or fried in fat on a skillet. |
Extended content
|
---|
Just because I've never heard of it, no-one I've asked has ever heard of it, and none of my (Australian) camping catering books refer to it, doesn't mean it's not true, I know. But I really think this is a case of
But how to prove a negative? As a slight bit of support, I refer to the damper article, which is about the same foodstuff as described above, and does not mention the term "johnnycake". The Morris source shows twenty occurrences [18] for "damper", including some at the "johhnycake" part. These mentions seem much more substantive than the johnnycake one. Also, the work is very old, and I am unable to find any other source that mentions something called "johnnycake" in Australia. Please comment, but if no-one objects, I think this should be removed, (as even if the name is, or was, used in AUS, it's really referring to a quite different food - it's more akin to soda or quick breads, as even the source and the article text make clear). Or at least, it should say it "was once" a term for a quick bread, rather then "is". 180.216.180.68 ( talk) 06:33, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
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References