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Southern Traditions


Varmint

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The syrup boiling festivities were about 75 miles east of Tifton, annecros, and held by a dear couple that I've known all of my life. Every year, on the evening after Thanksgiving, Mr. Alvin and Miss Wilda Ann invite friends and family to the annual to-do, but this was the first year I've been since I was a child. And yeah, I had at least as much fun as the kids... I just didn't come home with candy in my hair! I had forgotten about the grist mil at the Agrirama, though.

My local source for grits and meal is out-of-operation, so it may be time for a day trip.

Ooh, I also forgot pond drainings. To this day, I'm not so sure why that was "fun" to me as a child -- wearing your grungiest clothes, and getting even grubbier mucking around to retrieve the last of the fish. I can only guess that it was a combination of permission to get insanely muddy, plus the fact that we lived waaaaay out in the country, so anything out-of-the-ordinary was fun! :raz:

Well, maybe hog-butchering wasn't so fun - to me. I was horribly traumatized the first time I walked into my Granny's kitchen while she was making hogshead cheese. At age four or five, it's pretty weird to spot a grinning hog head bobbing away in your great-grandmother's biggest cookpot! And, as a young teenager, it's even rougher when a misunderstanding leads to learning that your "pet pig" has been butchered. (To be fair, I had "rescued" Fred the Pig from a neighbor, who was going to euthanize him because his back legs were slightly crippled, and he wouldn't have survived in the pen. My mom and I had a miscue from the very start, though, because she agreed to rescue livestock, while I thought I had a pet. Fred thrived on love, attention, homemade biscuits, and daily playtime. He played ball with a deflated basketball, dunking it gleefully in his water bucket, and seemed to think that he was one of the dogs. Fred thrived so much, in fact, that he weighed almost 900 pounds by the time he became pork chops and hams. The good news? Fred did have his favorite meal at the very end, and was lured into the livestock trailer with a trail of about 3 dozen of Mom's biscuits. The bad news? From the age of about 13 until I was well into my twenties, I refused to eat pork in any form.)

Even so, there was one named animal that I was absolutely gleeful about eating. For a few years, I was terrorized by Rojo, the World's Meanest Rooster. I have never eaten a better pot of chicken and dumplings than the one that contained Rojo!

"Enchant, stay beautiful and graceful, but do this, eat well. Bring the same consideration to the preparation of your food as you devote to your appearance. Let your dinner be a poem, like your dress."

Charles Pierre Monselet, Letters to Emily

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R E and annecros,

Y'all just reminded me of the shad roe we used to get. Only once a year and what a treat! Fried in bacon drippings that were kept in a can in the fridge. I never could eat the shad though, too many bones.

Thanks. :rolleyes:

And spoonbread and tomato pudding. Now I'm hungry.(where's the salivating smilie?)

If only Jack Nicholson could have narrated my dinner, it would have been perfect.

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Wow, RE, sounds like we are home folks. I was born in Albany, raised in Tifton, spent a couple of years in the Thomasville area, then High School back in Albany. Daddy was from Seminole County, and Mom from Mitchell County. Spring Creek and Sale City, respectively. I left Albany at about 20, and now live in South Florida. Mom still lives there, along with cousins and more cousins and a couple of siblings! I was one of ten, Dad was one of fourteen, and my Granny on Mom's side was one of nine.

Those pond drainings were a lot of fun as a kid, and the fish fry later was more fun. I think it was because tons of kids were always around to play with. Running wild! And we WERE a wild bunch.

As a girl, I was kept away from a lot of the gorier aspects of the hog cuttings. I did participate in picking and pulling the pork we usually roasted the same day, and the other food preparation activities, and my grandfather made the best sausage! The smell of the lard being rendered, and those fresh pork rinds cooking off on a cold morning, was amazing. Then the smokehouse would be going every time we went up there after that for a while. When I was very little, I remember one event where they butchered a cow as well. It was an extended family kind of thing, with relatives all coming in and leaving with portions of the freshly butchered meat.

Although he wasn't named, I witnessed (up close) my Grandfather wring the head off a rooster that had pecked my baby brother and made him cry. Grandaddy lost his temper over that one, because the rooster had drawn blood and my brother was just a toddler and got hysterical. My mom had a fit, because I ran into the house with that blood all over my clothes! I must have been a sight to see! I don't remember if that rooster made it into the pot, but knowing my grandparents they probably did have an unplanned pot of chicken and dumplings for supper.

Great memories. Maybe I will go through Tifton and stop by the Agrirama next time I make a trip home.

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Am I the only one reading along that feels deprived because I never went to a "pond draining"?

And just as a side note, did they call them ponds in the rural south, or tanks?

I don't understand why rappers have to hunch over while they stomp around the stage hollering.  It hurts my back to watch them. On the other hand, I've been thinking that perhaps I should start a rap group here at the Old Folks' Home.  Most of us already walk like that.

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Am I the only one reading along that feels deprived because I never went to a "pond draining"?

And just as a side note, did they call them ponds in the rural south, or tanks?

Tanks, in my experience, are a Texas thing.

Texans are special. Just ask them. :wink:

Brooks Hamaker, aka "Mayhaw Man"

There's a train everyday, leaving either way...

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Well, I always wondered about the 'tank' thing. Never made sense to me as a kid.

And, thanks for the compliment. Damn straight, we're special.

:wink: back atcha.

I don't understand why rappers have to hunch over while they stomp around the stage hollering.  It hurts my back to watch them. On the other hand, I've been thinking that perhaps I should start a rap group here at the Old Folks' Home.  Most of us already walk like that.

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Ever had the immature eggs from the hen that got butchered for the chicken and dumplings, in the chicken and dumplings? I'm sure there will be "gaks" and "squeals" in response, but they really are incredible, little tasty pearls.

Absolutely, though we didn't necessarily have them in chicken and dumplings, but rather as a separate treat, usually for the cooks (who in my grandmother's case was also the butcher) and any favored children who happened to be helping out in the kitchen. They were, frankly, too good to share with the men. The liver was similarly divvied up.

Seems like maybe my mom had a special name for them, but I can't recall it at the moment. We were likely too busy eating to talk.

Can you pee in the ocean?

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Am I the only one reading along that feels deprived because I never went to a "pond draining"?

And just as a side note, did they call them ponds in the rural south, or tanks?

Tanks, in my experience, are a Texas thing.

Texans are special. Just ask them. :wink:

I learned to swim in a tank out in Todd Field in west Texas. Of course we are special, we're Texans.

And for annecros, I still store the bacon drippings in a coffee can. Isn't that the only way to do it? My Mamma taught me that. Bless her heart.

It is good to be a BBQ Judge.  And now it is even gooder to be a Steak Cookoff Association Judge.  Life just got even better.  Woo Hoo!!!

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Oh, and RE, do they let you sample the buck now that you are a bit older?

:laugh:

Ah, Mr. and Mrs. C. are good Baptists, so if they make buck, they don't advertise! :laugh: Seriously, I doubt that Mr. Alvin would truck with such a thing, and if he did, he certainly wouldn't consider offering it to a "young lady" like myself... After all, it's only been half-a-lifetime since I registered to vote! (I must admit, though, that at my age, I'm flattered to be considered an innocent young thing whose morals and reputation should be guarded! Even if the "guardian" is one of my grandfather's contemporaries.)

However, I have tasted buck in the past. As near as I can tell, it must be an acquired taste, but it is better than any of the moonshine I've ever tasted. My own Methodist family never balked at making their own various homebrews, for "medicinal purposes," of course. Grandmother and her mother made wine from muscadines, blackberries, peaches, and other fruits; and granddaddy experimented a time or two with mead when the honeybees went into serious overdrive.

And yes, annecros, we're pretty close to being "homegirls," and my grandparents even lived in Albany back when they were newlyweds. (Yeah, of course I know how to pronounce your hometown "properly.") You're probably the only person on the board whose heard of my hometown of Baxley! I was raised there and in Bulloch County, so my food traditions probably include more coastal influences than yours. As a kid, I spent a fair amount of time on the salt water, and rice was as much a diet staple as grits at the family table. It's pretty amazing how only a few miles can influence those traditions.

"Enchant, stay beautiful and graceful, but do this, eat well. Bring the same consideration to the preparation of your food as you devote to your appearance. Let your dinner be a poem, like your dress."

Charles Pierre Monselet, Letters to Emily

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RE, Of course I know Baxley! Who doesn't? :wink:

Seriously though, there was not a flea market, thrift shop or farmer's market south of Atlanta and north of the Florida state line that was too "out of the way" for my mother. And Dad never saw a dirt road he didn't feel the need to drive down until it ran out. The thing to do on Sunday afternoons after dinner was to go for a "ride around" - which would consist of getting into a big old gas hog and driving around the country aimlessly. As the youngest, brother and I usually got to go along, if they weren't able to sucker one of the older kids into watching us, that is. Seems like there was a huge farmer's market in Jasper or Ellijay that Mom liked to hit. And, I had an older sister in Savannah, so we knew every conceivable route through that area. My very best friend went to school in Statesboro. Lot's of old houses in that part of the state. Lot's of pre civil war stuff still around, if I remember correctly. My first husband's family was from Effingham county, and that was my first real introduction to the great seafood in that area. Visiting his grandparents, I was introduced to fish and grits for breakfast, low country boil (they called it goulash) and blue crab and shrimp. They had retired to a lovely place on Lemon Island, SC, and had access to the water and a pontoon boat and a couple of john boats. Present hubby is German, but his stepfather was from Adel (so close to hell you can see Sparks!). That was a real culture shock for him. His first exposure to the US was at the age of 5, speaking only German, and staying at a farm house outside of Adel with no indoor plumbing! He wanted to go back to Germany, and his Oma.

Funny you should say that about rice, because there was always a pot of rice on the table with every meal. Rice and gravy was obligatory. It was almost as obligatory as the plate of sliced tomatos. Grits were a breakfast food in our house usually. We didn't do the seafood though, but that was my Mom. She couldn't stand it. Dad loved it though. His family was back and forth between Georgia and the Gulf Coast of Florida when he was a kid, so there was more coastal influence there. We ate more cornbread than biscuits. Mom's biscuits were just awful! But she made up for it with her cornbread and cakes. I went to Granny for biscuits.

3 out of 4 grandparents in my family were teetotalers, except for the "medicinal" muscadine wine, of course. My great grandmother actually made a "tincture" for her rheumatism, which consisted of poppy sap preserved in alcohol. Yep, real opium poppies! My father's father was an incorrigable drunk, however. Quite the moonshiner, if family legends are to be believed, and I don't see why not. I only tasted buck once, and that was all anyone needs I think to make up one's mind. Seeing the wasps work the skimmings is enough to put anybody off.

Yep, the old folks are the only ones who still treat me like a fragile flower, and call me "Missy"! I have to admit that I eat it up whenever I get the chance.

It's nice to run across somebody from back home from time to time. Down here, my next door neighbor is as equally likely to be from upstate NY, Haiti, Cuba, South America or Jersey as they are from Florida! Thanks for the chance to visit a bit!

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Ever had the immature eggs from the hen that got butchered for the chicken and dumplings, in the chicken and dumplings? I'm sure there will be "gaks" and "squeals" in response, but they really are incredible, little tasty pearls.

Absolutely, though we didn't necessarily have them in chicken and dumplings, but rather as a separate treat, usually for the cooks (who in my grandmother's case was also the butcher) and any favored children who happened to be helping out in the kitchen. They were, frankly, too good to share with the men. The liver was similarly divvied up.

Seems like maybe my mom had a special name for them, but I can't recall it at the moment. We were likely too busy eating to talk.

OK, that does it. I need to call Mom anyway, and I am going to ask her what they are called! It's going to drive me nuts if I don't.

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Am I the only one reading along that feels deprived because I never went to a "pond draining"?

And just as a side note, did they call them ponds in the rural south, or tanks?

You should feel deprived! Every child has a right to be eaten up by mosquitos, slop around in the mud with snakes and catfish, get cut up and scratched up in debris from the bottom of the pond, covered from head to toe in mud and play until they drop! It really was not the appropriate place for children, but I guess my family figured they needed the cheap labor! I wouldn't have wanted my little ones near a pond draining. But they sure were a good time, and those were different times. Amazing we survived some of the situations we were in.

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Am I the only one reading along that feels deprived because I never went to a "pond draining"?

And just as a side note, did they call them ponds in the rural south, or tanks?

Tanks, in my experience, are a Texas thing.

Texans are special. Just ask them. :wink:

I learned to swim in a tank out in Todd Field in west Texas. Of course we are special, we're Texans.

And for annecros, I still store the bacon drippings in a coffee can. Isn't that the only way to do it? My Mamma taught me that. Bless her heart.

Well, I have seen them stored in a covered bowl on the stove top. Mamma said that was just nasty, but that my Aunt just didn't know any better, bless her heart. Must have been the way she was raised or something...

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  • 4 months later...

Well y'all I read all six pages and although the thread died shortly before Christmas, I have to jump in and add Mint Juleps. They are just so yummy and refreshing on a hot southern day in the shade of the back porch. Or the AC, whichever the case may be. :smile:

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It's good to see my little mint ears sprouting all under the big tree, though it will be such an overgrown tangle by August, I'll think it will creep in and strangle us in our beds.

Juleps (now where DID I store those nice metal cups?) and tea and tabbouleh and Miz Paula's Watermelon salad---yum.

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Mint, I have discovered, unlike pecan and oak trees, is completely hurricane proof. In fact, now that the yard is basically as sunny as a cotton field, the stuff is going crazy.

Another thing that I love about the South are Tamales! They are a staple where I come from and if there's a better, and more lovingly prepared fast food, I don't know what it is. I love the things. This weekend, on the Tamale Trail Tour, I ate more than my share, and then, just to top it off, ended the day with a really, really good steak at Lusco's

All in all, one of my better eating days in the recent past. Rolaids should really consider getting on board as a sponsor. :unsure:

Brooks Hamaker, aka "Mayhaw Man"

There's a train everyday, leaving either way...

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Poundings. Has that been mentioned yet?

The tradition may have died out save in very small, secluded enclaves of the Hardest of Shell Baptists and a few Pentecostal congregations, but Pounding the Preacher was a very popular gathering until a few years ago.

Packages of fresh-dressed game of all sorts, pork fresh from the hog-killin', buckets and tubs of home-grown tomatoes and potatoes and turnips, great croaker sacks of roasin' ears and flower-embossed slabs of just-churned butter to anoint them, bags and boxes and burlaps and pokes of everything from chitlings to pie. And due to quite a few kitchen-proud local cooks with their own famous recipes, the preacher's family might be eating pound CAKE for weeks thereafter.

No self-respecting pastor was expected to do all the preaching, choir directing, visiting, comforting and soul-saving required without ample sustenance to start out with, and the new family in the parsonage walked in to stocked cupboards, pantry and refrigerator, as well as a well-stacked woodpile, brimming coalbin or topped-off butane tank.

Newly-married couples were frightened out of their slumbers by honking horns, banging of pans, and raucous shouts from friends and neighbors bearing great stores of foodstuffs, household goods and tools to stock the workshed.

I've attended quite a few of these little rural festivals, and the outpourings of generosity ranged from gallons of homemade pickles to a puppy for the kids.

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as a "PK" (that is preacher's kid to the un-initiated) I have been on the receiving end of many, many a show of adulation by the congregation and, trust me, they were very much appreciated. Especially in rural congregations preachers did not get paid a whole lot (The Rev and I were perusing the conference pay scale the other day and all I could do was stare bug-eyed at some of the salaries and wonder why he did not make all of this when he was still holding down a church) so the congregation would make up for it by, as racheld mentioned, a "pounding" where by the preacher would get (at least) a pound of some thing fr/ members of the congregation. Early on it was home-grown vegetables or fruits or fresh-milled corn or every and any manner of pork, chicken, beef or even fresh caught fish or milk or on occasion some just-churned butter or home-made jelly, jam, preserves or what ever they had to share. Later it was store bought goods such as flour, sugar, shortening, &c.

We still laugh at the story of a friend of the Rev's who was living in the middle of no-where. One day a member of the congregation dropped off a chicken for the minister but there were two problems: one, the minister was not home only the pastor's wife was and two, the chicken was freshly dead--as in still alive and clucking shortly before the farmer dropped it off at the parsonage. The poor city girl come country had no idea what to do w/ a freshly dispatched chicken. Not wanting to upset the proverbial apple cart she graciously accepted the gift and, according to the story, stood there on the porch holding it scared to move until the minister who, luckily for her, returned shortly and handled the situation.

in loving memory of Mr. Squirt (1998-2004)--

the best cat ever.

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dont y'all wish jerry clower were still alive to post here? or for that matter some of our relatives? great thread varmint, great thread! there are some great follow ups here so i wont re-type except for a few that hit close to home for me, which is corinth mississippi (now live in nashville).

1) making homeade ice cream. (electric ice cream makers DO NOT COUNT!) we make/crush our own ice and use table salt. you will get firm cream everytime if you use this instead of cube ice and ice cream/rock salt. -seriously!!!

2) frying catfish & hushpuppiees

3) fried pies

4) tomato & mayo sandwich with white bread

5) glass of buttermilk & cornbread

6) slugburgers!!!!! (read prior posts on this section to learn more)

7) r.c. cola & moon pies

8) martha white biscuits

9) homeade molasess

10) duck gumbo from winter duck season.

11) purple hull peas, chow-chow & cornbread

Newgene Ledbetter would rather climb a tree to tell you a lie than stand on the ground and tell you the truth!

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I learned to swim in a tank out in Todd Field in west Texas.  Of course we are special, we're Texans. 

And for annecros,  I still store the bacon drippings in a coffee can.  Isn't that the only way to do it?  My Mamma taught me that.  Bless her heart.

It seemed to me growing up in the Lone Star State that ponds lived in East Texas and tanks lived in West Texas. I lived in the middle. The mentions of pimento cheese carry me away. I can also remember the ecstasy of eating my father's pan gravy over any starch but especially white bread. Cheers.

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1) making homeade ice cream.  (electric ice cream makers DO NOT COUNT!)  we make/crush our own ice and use table salt.  you will get firm cream everytime if you use this instead of cube ice and ice cream/rock salt.  -seriously!!! CHECK

4) tomato & mayo sandwich with white bread CHECK

5) glass of buttermilk &  cornbread CHECK

7) r.c. cola & moon pies CHECK

8) martha white biscuits CHECK

9) homeade molasess CHECK

MMMMMM....Big Hoss, my Miami friend's down here where I live now, thought I was crazy eating #4!!! But, in reality it is sad that they have never experienced that! I even went as far as to eat a tomato like an apple. They thought I was one short of a dozen! The HORROR!! lol! Poor people!

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annecros,

Sorry I lost the thread. Yes it was a coffee can! How'd you know?

You know the saddest thing was when my great-grandmother went to live in a nursing home and she had to drink tea made from a powder. Just vile.

If only Jack Nicholson could have narrated my dinner, it would have been perfect.

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Southern Traditions, -What's important to you, other than Barbecue?

1. I am in Miami. That being said, the most important thing to me in life is Eastern NC BBQ with tangy vinegar sauce. Meat pulled from the whole hog (yum!). It is all I think about.

One of my good friends - who happens to be of the Cuban culture here in Miami, is going to find out her Mama's recipe to prepare the pulled pork - her exact technique. So many people have helped me with techniques. THANK YOU!!!

When it all comes down to it, its hard to do it when you can't really"cookout" and all you can rely on is the oven.

I know I need a big aluminum pan and a lot of aluminum foil, a dry rub and a tangy vinegar sauce. I cook it low and slow.

Anyways, what is important to me - in the Southern Tradition is:

home-canned beets, pickles, peaches, corn, tomaotes, green beans, vegetable soup.

Spending my summers as a youth stringing and breaking green beans. I remember looking on with sheer horror at my Momma's huge bushel of green beans she had just harvested in the garden that summer's day. Looking back- it was an awesome experience.

Hanging clothes on the line to dry. My sheets smelling like sunshine.

Persimmons, Figs, Apples, Muscadines, Pe(cahn)s, Barbecue, Grits, Country-Ham, Saw-Mill Gravy, Buttermilk Biscuis (with a hint of leftover Mashed Potatoes added in), raspberries, blueberries, stawberries) :raz:

Eggs, Sausage, Gravy, CHICKEN-FRIED STEAK, Homemeade strawberry jam, picking strawberries in the NC Mountains.

Driving along I-40 in the NC Mountains looking with awe at some of the oldest Mountains in the world. Even after all through my life of seeing them and playing in the waterfalls along the Parkway, picnicing, visiting family, family reunions in the midst of the mountains - I never tire of it.

How my ancestors migrated from England and Ireland - (my roots also doused in Cherokee blood), Where bluegrass got its roots (Ireland).

That is what being Southern is to me. I an proud to be from the South. You can call me a redneck, a hillbilly, a simple person - whatever - it doesn't matter to me -I know who I am, I know who Bubba is, I love my Mama, my family, my grits, and finally, my red eye gravy that I drink out of a Mason jar!

You can't change a Southerner. That's tradition!

Edited by GRITS (log)
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