Billy Seldom n Also Bill Sildom, Joe Seldom, Tom ~ Sth, S Midl ?obs Cf Johnny Constant n
Wheat flour; wheaten bread or biscuit.
1864 in 1996 Owen Letters to Laura 144 cTN, We get plenty of Old Jonny Constant that is corn bread, if you dont know the name. Billy Seldom is very scarce now with us. 1887 Cumberland Daily Times (MD) 7 May [7]/3 (newspaperarchive.com), Even the tramps know Beauvoir as a generous house, and their vagabond confraternity has marked it as a place where light bread, or Joe Seldom as the negroes facetiously call it, is proffered upon application instead of the less palatable “Johnny Constant,” or corn bread. 1896 (1897) Hughes 30 Yrs. a Slave 15 MS (as of 1844), The next attraction for me was the farm hands getting their Christmas rations. Each was given a pint of flour of which they made biscuit, which were called “Billy Seldom,” because biscuit were very rare with them. Their daily food was corn bread, which they called “Johnny Constant,” as they had it constantly. 1905 Moulton Eagle (TX) 15 Sept [2]/5 (newspaperarchive.com) (as of 1840s), I think old Ballard got his groceries from Indianola. The first barrel of flour that I saw father gave him $35 worth of deer hides for it, and he would not let us eat it only on Sunday for breakfast. Brother Jim called it “Billy Seldom,” and called cornbread “Johnny Constant.” 1910 Joplin News–Herald (MO) 7 Aug 9/6 (as of 1840s), We had corn bread every day and wheat biscuits on Sunday mornings when I was a girl. Corn bread was called ‘Johnny Constant,’ and wheat bread ‘Tom Seldom.’ 1957 Kitchens Trickem 92 swAR (as of 1900–10), We called biscuits, Bill Sildom, and cornbread, John Constant because we seldom had biscuits and constantly had cornbread.