Meet the king of hushpuppies

Leon Word of Gladewater had a 30-year career with Eastman Chemical.

When he retired in 2004 he went to work doing what he likes to do most: make hushpuppies. His company makes a lot of them, sometimes a million and a half a week. 

“I think I’m a hushpuppy connoisseur,” Leon says. “I know what a good hushpuppy ought to taste like. When I started I actually used donut-manufacturing equipment to make them. It was a little hopper and you turned the crank and it spit out 3 hushpuppies into a tabletop fryer.”

He experimented with a recipe one afternoon until he got it right, then started peddling his hushpuppies to stores, demonstrating them on the premises.”

I kinda looked like Sanford and Son going down the interstate.  I had a trailer on the back of a pickup that had 4 freezers running off a generator but that’s how I distributed my product: north of I-20 one day, south one day east to the Shreveport area one day, west one day then Sunday afternoons I’d be making dry mix for the next week.”

The demand for his product grew way beyond what he could make in his kitchen, so he decided to go with a food jobber.

“I knew I had a good product. In 5 years we’ve grown from sitting on the front porch wondering if we would cook today to distributing a couple of 18-wheeler loads a week all over the country including Hawaii and Alaska, even Puerto Rico. 

“Our product goes exclusively to Wal-Mart under the Great Value label.  You can find it next to the frozen shrimp.  They’re crispy on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside no matter how you cook them. The best way we’ve found is air frying. If you have an air fryer set the temperature at 350 degrees and go from freezer to air fryer 8 minutes and they’re perfect. 

“You can think of a hushpuppy as a cornbread substitute that you don’t have to mix up and cook in a pan.  They’re great with chili and are a great accompaniment to any home cooking. I’ve had people just fix them as snacks.”

Leon is one talented salesman. It goes with believing in his product. At trade shows he would amaze people by showing up with just an air fryer. They were surprised that he didn’t have an old-fashioned hot oil frying apparatus with him. He says he could have sold a truckload of air fryers at those shows. 

He was extremely reluctant to give up his recipe, knowing it was a good one. He went through several food brokers before he decided on one he could trust. 

His product is made in Tennessee. Arkansas sells more hushpuppies than any other state.

“I just want people to know we started from scratch and we know where we came from. The Lord has blessed us in ways that I couldn’t have ever imagined. We just want people to enjoy a good hushpuppy.”