SC - Niceties of debate, was - food bashing

[Philip & Susan Troy]

>     Boiled peanuts isn't a food - it's a ritual. For those of us who grew
up
> in the old south, digging up mats of peanuts, hosing them off, stripping
> them out of the mass of root fibers, boiling them up with your favorite
> boiling mix, letting them cool while enjoying the aroma to where you
don't
> have to do the ol' scream, toss & blow when you peel 'em, just think of
it
> as a southern running the sap sort of thing. With an RC cola and a moon
pie
> (chocolate or banana, depending on your particular perversion,) you're in
> Dixie heaven!

Actually, I was raised (mostly) in Tennesse and didn't taste a boiled
peanut until I met my husband, who while he spent a considerable portion of
his youth in Augusta, GA, is from Ohio ;-)  He loves them!  I can't stand
them.

RC is o.k. (I'm a Pepsi outcast living in Atlanta, myself) but I've never
been big on moon pies (although I have to admit to an occassional craving,
and I haven't seen the banana ones in *ages*) and when I do want one it's
with *milk*, not RC (in fact I've never actually known anyone who ate moon
pies with RC cola, including my uncle who refused to have any cola in his
house except Royal Crown.  I have to wonder if it didn't start out as a
stereotype and then some folks tried it and decided that it was good :-)

>     And let me tell you, boiled peanuts with country ham & redeye gravy
with
> cornpone and a mess o' greens . . . gives a man the strength to go forth
and
> whup on that which needs to be whupped!

Aww.... man!!!   did you *have* to make me Hon-gery!  (never been big on
redeye gravy, but I'm still jonesing for country ham since spending 6
months in Minneapolis... guess I still haven't had enough to get my fill.)

Odd foods... Let's see...
    my uncle taught me to eat white corn syrup on white beans when I was a
kid.  my grandfather (from Ohio) taught me to dip toast in my coffee and
later I tried it in tea (both of which I take like any good Angolphile,
with *cream* and sugar, when they're hot at least.)  my grandmother used to
love buttermilk with crackers crumbled in it (eaten with a spoon) and
introduced me to the unimaginable delicacy of fried squirrel brains.  my
brother used to eat hogs head (after it was rindered) and eyes, but I think
that he did that just to gross me out.   and I don't like "chittlins" or
giblets in my gravy but I have an absolute passion for fried chicken
gizzards dipped in salt and pepper gravy ("sawmill" gravy down here.)   and
I *do* eat grits, but I eat them as a hot cereal with butter, cream and
sugar and don't like them with salt or cheese or such (corn to me is
*sweet* even if it has had unmentionable things done to it) but don't like
hominy.  and cracklin corn bread beats plain ole cornpone in my book :-)

    Other regional foods I love... collard greens, polk salad, fried
squirrel (inclusive), catfish (also alligator tail and frogs legs), sweet
potato casserole, chocolate gravy over biscuits (one of my mother's
specialties... actually a thin warm version of chocolate pudding served
over fresh hot buttermilk biscuits with a dot of butter)...

I just realized this could go on all day, and I wouldn't even have touched
on the Irish and German foods that I love which come from either my
father's or mother's regional or cultural heritage... so I guess I'll give
someone else the floor now ;-)

I remain, in service to Meridies,
Lady Celia des L'archier