Cooking Dinner
Cooking Dinner
Cooking Dinner
Nursery Rhyme
Nursery Rhyme
(Historical Black American English)
(English)
Go: Bile dem cabbage down.
Turn dat hoecake 'round,
Cook it done an' brown.
Yes: Gwineter have sweet taters too.
Hain't had none since las' Fall,
Gwineter eat 'em skins an' all.
Go, boil the cabbage down.
Turn that hoecake* 'round,
Cook it till it's done and brown.
Yes! Going to have sweet potatoes too.
Haven't had any since last Fall,
Going to eat them skins and all.
Notes
*Hoecakes are made with cornmeal, salt and water. They're called hoecakes because they were actually cooked on the blade of a large hoe, by workers in the fields, over an open fire.
***
According to Allan Lomax, who collected folk songs in the US, this song became "universally popular among white square dance musicians".
Thanks and Acknowledgements
This rhyme can be found in Negro Folk Rhymes, Wise and Otherwise, with a Study by Thomas W. Talley of Fisk University (1922).
Standard English version by Lisa Yannucci.
