Sunday, December 19, 2004
Chow
By The Erudite Redneck
At our Christmas luncheon at work the other day, the top dog of the outfit sidled up as I was pilin’ brisket and beans onto my plate and said, “A down-home meal for a down-home columnist.”
Well, I reckon. It’s not that I try. If anything, it’s that I don’t try to be what I’m not. The natural me comes out, is all.
Admittedly, I have to rein in the natural me quite a bit sometimes; a major daily newspaper can only stand so many colloquialisms – which means actually writin’ the way people talk – before the copy editors start freakin’ out.
But, here’s my question: What makes brisket and beans any more “down home” that turkey and dressing? Or Cornish game hens and asparagus? Or pizza. Or jambalaya? Or meatloaf and mashed taters? Or pecan-crusted trout and caramelized carrots?
“Down home” depends on whose home you’re talkin’ about, doesn’t it?
Reminds me of two incidents in my development as a redneck gastronome: the first time I ate Ethiopian food and the first time I ate “soul” food.
Numero uno. The first time I ate Ethiopian food was in Washington, D.C. Fancy place, fancy date with a fancy girl. Honey wine. Very heady stuff for a twentysomething ER.
We ordered, me deferring to her, she bein’ a woman of the world. I drew the line at sittin’ on the floor. I did, at her insistence, eschew silverware.
She ordered, of course, since I didn’t know doro wat from gomen – and still don’t. The food came. As I was joyfully eatin’ this way different meal with this fine lass, using the thin pancakes to scoop bites at a time from communal bowls, I realized:
Hey, this is real familiar. Beef chunks? Collard greens? Some kind of taters? Well, I’ll swan.
Except for the honey wine, there wadn’t a thing in them bowls I hadn’t eaten before. Not a thing. Made me feel right at home.
Ask Dr. ER for a completely different Ethiopian eatin’ experience involving myself, her and Bird on a much more recent trip to Washingtennessee, as D.C. is known in our house. But the first time, back in the middle of Reagan’s second term, was very cool.
Numero two-o. The first time I ate “soul” food was in the town in Texas where I lived and worked before now.
The lone black city councilman, a preacher-pastor-community builder-people person in the legacy of the Rev. Dr. MLK, decided to open a “soul” food restaurant, to cater to the black community in town, but also to be a place where blacks and whites could get together just to get along, which is always a good thing.
A bunch of us at the paper loaded up, at the reverend’s invitation, and headed over to his new eatin’ joint to try out his vittles.
Why, it was like old home week for ER, who is as whitebread as they come. His menu was loaded with fried chicken, cornbread, black-eyed peas, greens, barbecue, corn, mashed taters, chicken-fried steak, greenbeans and other kinds of “soul” food.
Do what? That’s just good eatin’. Even the chitlins were nothing new for me, since Daddy used to eat just about anything that didn’t crawl off his plate (pig brains and eggs, potted meat and head cheese, for example) a trait that I inherited – ‘cause I do love menudo. (Copy editor lurkers: “chitlins” is what real people call “chitterlings,” the small intestines of hogs.)
Soul food is Southern food, is all. The West picked up a lot of it, partly because of the poor whupped Rebels who headed to the land of the settin’ sun after the War of Northern Aggression, and added some Spanish and Indian spice to lots of it.
And, not to make too big a deal out of it, but if white folks and black folks can come together to break bread and share a meal – especially if its cornbread and the meal is a yardbird fried to a scrumptious golden hue – then we’re all already more than halfway to getting’ along.
END
At our Christmas luncheon at work the other day, the top dog of the outfit sidled up as I was pilin’ brisket and beans onto my plate and said, “A down-home meal for a down-home columnist.”
Well, I reckon. It’s not that I try. If anything, it’s that I don’t try to be what I’m not. The natural me comes out, is all.
Admittedly, I have to rein in the natural me quite a bit sometimes; a major daily newspaper can only stand so many colloquialisms – which means actually writin’ the way people talk – before the copy editors start freakin’ out.
But, here’s my question: What makes brisket and beans any more “down home” that turkey and dressing? Or Cornish game hens and asparagus? Or pizza. Or jambalaya? Or meatloaf and mashed taters? Or pecan-crusted trout and caramelized carrots?
“Down home” depends on whose home you’re talkin’ about, doesn’t it?
Reminds me of two incidents in my development as a redneck gastronome: the first time I ate Ethiopian food and the first time I ate “soul” food.
Numero uno. The first time I ate Ethiopian food was in Washington, D.C. Fancy place, fancy date with a fancy girl. Honey wine. Very heady stuff for a twentysomething ER.
We ordered, me deferring to her, she bein’ a woman of the world. I drew the line at sittin’ on the floor. I did, at her insistence, eschew silverware.
She ordered, of course, since I didn’t know doro wat from gomen – and still don’t. The food came. As I was joyfully eatin’ this way different meal with this fine lass, using the thin pancakes to scoop bites at a time from communal bowls, I realized:
Hey, this is real familiar. Beef chunks? Collard greens? Some kind of taters? Well, I’ll swan.
Except for the honey wine, there wadn’t a thing in them bowls I hadn’t eaten before. Not a thing. Made me feel right at home.
Ask Dr. ER for a completely different Ethiopian eatin’ experience involving myself, her and Bird on a much more recent trip to Washingtennessee, as D.C. is known in our house. But the first time, back in the middle of Reagan’s second term, was very cool.
Numero two-o. The first time I ate “soul” food was in the town in Texas where I lived and worked before now.
The lone black city councilman, a preacher-pastor-community builder-people person in the legacy of the Rev. Dr. MLK, decided to open a “soul” food restaurant, to cater to the black community in town, but also to be a place where blacks and whites could get together just to get along, which is always a good thing.
A bunch of us at the paper loaded up, at the reverend’s invitation, and headed over to his new eatin’ joint to try out his vittles.
Why, it was like old home week for ER, who is as whitebread as they come. His menu was loaded with fried chicken, cornbread, black-eyed peas, greens, barbecue, corn, mashed taters, chicken-fried steak, greenbeans and other kinds of “soul” food.
Do what? That’s just good eatin’. Even the chitlins were nothing new for me, since Daddy used to eat just about anything that didn’t crawl off his plate (pig brains and eggs, potted meat and head cheese, for example) a trait that I inherited – ‘cause I do love menudo. (Copy editor lurkers: “chitlins” is what real people call “chitterlings,” the small intestines of hogs.)
Soul food is Southern food, is all. The West picked up a lot of it, partly because of the poor whupped Rebels who headed to the land of the settin’ sun after the War of Northern Aggression, and added some Spanish and Indian spice to lots of it.
And, not to make too big a deal out of it, but if white folks and black folks can come together to break bread and share a meal – especially if its cornbread and the meal is a yardbird fried to a scrumptious golden hue – then we’re all already more than halfway to getting’ along.
END
Comments:
<< Home
:-) The first five or six rhymes were accidents. Then Trixie suggested I was doin' it a-purpose. Now I'm doin' it as a way to prompt something to write about. :-) Thanks for the suggestion, by the way, because my weddin' day does make a right fine tale.
I do miss the company chow-fests, but I've already got my black-eyed peas and the hambone ready for New Year's. Spicy Hoppin' John is an annual tradition of longstanding at my house. I usually have such an abundance that it feeds me for most of the first month of the new year.
We always ate peas and jowl for good luck on New Year's Day, but I was grown and livin' in Texas before I heard of the dish, Hoppin' John -- and even worse for my Rebel credentials, I'd never heard the story behind it, either!
Post a Comment
<< Home
