A soft cake of wheat or maize, somewhat resembling a pancake.
1834. We sometimes had to live mostly on johnny-cake and corn-dodgers, and sometimes our living was scant.—H. C. Kimball’s Journal; in The Prophet, N.Y., March 15, 1845.
1845. I tarried to breakfast, which consisted of a good cup of coffee, and a fowl, with some corn bread, or “dodger.”—P. P. Pratt, Account of his escape: The Prophet, Feb. 18.
1845. Our traveller was set down at the tavern, and forgot his surprise at the diminutive area of the Texan capital over a good supper of “corn-dodgers” and “chicken-fixins.”—‘The Cincinnati Miscellany,’ i. 164.
1846. When tea-time approached, the dodger was mixed and placed at the fire.—E. W. Farnham, ‘Life in Prairie Land,’ p. 138. (Italics in the original.)
1847. The Sucker State, the country of vast projected rail roads, good corndodger, splendid banking houses, and poor currency.—Robb, ‘Streaks of Squatter Life,’ &c., p. 28 (Phila.).
1850. Who was it, sir, that in 1828 could condemn the erection of hickory poles, yet in 1840 could build log cabins, drink hard cider, and nibble corn dodgers?—Mr. Olds of Ohio, House of Repr., July 24: Cong. Globe, p. 946, Appendix.
1852. Her corn-cake, in all its varieties of hoe-cake, dodgers, muffins, and other species too numerous to mention, was a sublime mystery to all less practised compounders; and she would shake her fat sides with honest pride and merriment, as she would narrate the fruitless efforts that one and another of her compeers had made to attain to her elevation.—Mrs. Stowe, ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ chap. iv. (N.E.D.)
1854. The boarders and guests of the tavern had to rough it on corn dodger, as it was called, greatly to their discontent.—J. G. Baldwin, ‘Flush Times,’ p. 142–3. (Italics in the original.)
1856. He opened a pouch which he wore on his side, and took from thence one or two corn dodgers and half a broiled rabbit, which his wife had put up for hunting provision the day before.—H. B. Stowe, ‘Dred,’ chap. xl.
1856. Do you recollect the time, when in the midst of agues, that the only nourishment many could give the sick was a coarse corn dodger?—George A. Smith at the Bowery, Salt Lake City, April 6: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ iii. 290.
1856. We were, accordingly, all seated around a huge, cheerful fire, awaiting the approaching meal of corn dodgers and bacon.—Yale Lit. Mag., xxi. 145 (Feb.).
1860. You could not procure hands, if you should propose to feed them on “corn dodgers” (an elegant word which Webster has omitted) and fat bacon.—Letter to Oregon Argus, Nov. 10.
1864. Corn-dodgers made of confiscated corn, fried with confiscated pork, and anointed with confiscated molasses.—Yale Lit. Mag., xxix. 182 (March).
