How To Eat Bet

My sister and I have a running argument. She says I'm not a true southerner because I don't like sweet potatoes. And I don't. I think they're vile, but my instant retort to this accusation is that she doesn't like grits so how in the hell can she accuse me of not being a southerner? She has no answer to this, but it doesn't stop her from going at me anytime there's a sweet potato in my general vicinity.

Southern food is an entity unto itself, and some I like and some I shy away from. You know, I was recently part of a discussion that contained a few nuggets of wisdom, like the south is probably the only place where green beans with new potatoes are considered a main dish. And macaroni and cheese is never a main dish. And only the lowest snakes in the grass will put dark meat in their chicken salad, and one is never fully accessorized without a deviled egg dish. Usually shaped like a chicken.

I don't know where all this is going, it's just that in the past couple of months I've freaked two people out with the mention of a summer classic around here. Scalded lettuce and onions.

And this is where I guess things are going to get complicated. Because I have my list of what I consider southern food, your fried chicken, sweet potatoes, pecan pie, biscuits and gravy and the like, and I have my list of what I consider "country food." Country food is what showed up in our family many times when I was growing up. Mom and Mamaw Bowles were always big on country food when I was kid, so I grew up on this stuff, but I can tell you that nothing was more disappointing than getting to the dinner table on a Friday or Saturday night and having to say, "Awww, geez. Country food! Weekends are for fun food, like hamburgers and pizza!" And sometimes we got that, but sometimes it was country food, and there wasn't a damn thing we could do about it. I guess the best definition of country food is, "food you generally won't find in a restaurant." Because you have it at home all the time, so why would anyone want it out somewhere?

(By the way, it was a funny thing when my friend Tina first visited here from England. When offered a breakfast of biscuits and gravy, her face took on an expression I can't quite describe. Of course, I knew what was going on, being the erudite fool that I am. She was thinking cookies and brown sauce, which is the English translation of biscuits and gravy. She was still a little suspect of the whole concoction when it was presented to her, but took to it quite well, probably better than I do, actually, because I'm not much of a gravy fan. Biscuits, though. I could eat biscuits all day long, or could before bread started making very bad things happen in my intestines.)

So. Country food. Where do we start? I guess at the beginning. Here are a few of the things that show up on our family's dinner table from time to time.

Of course, you have your scalded lettuce and onions. This sounds a lot worse than it is. You have a bowl of lettuce, and let me stress this is garden lettuce, not store lettuce, and you've cut up a goodly amount of green onions into it. Then you take your cast iron skillet (used for all good dishes and bonking ne'er-do-well men on the head), and you melt up some bacon grease, sugar, vinegar, and water. You boil (or "bull," if you're me) that all up, then pour it over the lettuce and onions, and a good time is had by all. Till you run out of Rolaids.

Now, I don't like scalded lettuce and onions on their own. In fact, for years I wouldn't go near the stuff, until it was imparted upon me that they don't have to be a stand-alone dish. Then I discovered the joys of mixing up some L&O (that's lettuce and onions, not "Law & Order") into a bowl of brown beans, or spreading it out on a good piece of cornbread that's been slathered with butter.

By the by, scalded lettuce and onions, I'm told, make an excellent lunch in this part of the world, only here most people call it dinner, but let's not even go there. This is how to eat Bet, not how to speak it. And I say "lunch," anyway. Erudite fool that I am.

Now, here's a meal from my childhood. Salmon cakes and gravy. This consists of canned salmon mixed with light bread (remember light bread? I know you do!) and made into a cake. Then it's fried up and covered with gravy. I always liked this as a kid, even though I was a little skeeved out by the fact that canned salmon has those cylinder-shaped edible bones in it that occasionally crunch around in the mouth.

Like tomatoes? You can't go wrong with breaded tomatoes, which is a big bowl of torn-up light bread and a can of stewed tomatoes, all mooshed up, with some salt and pepper and butter added. Bake them into a casserole and voila! Side dish supreme. This is, of course, not to be confused with macaroni and tomatoes, which is just what it's advertised as. Make up some macaroni, drain it, and add the stewed tomatoes. And if you're from my family, you never squeeze up your stewed tomatoes. For if you do that, then the dish won't take on the distinct look of macaroni in a bowl of blood and brains.

One of the happiest memories from my childhood is that of Sunday mornings at Mamaw's house eating saltfish. Saltfish was something, I'm still not sure what, it's a fish that was dry, and packed in so much salt Mamaw had to start soaking it in a pan in the sink at about 7pm on Saturday night. While she watched "Hee Haw." Then Sunday morning she'd rinse it off, drain it, and fry it up, bones and all, and, well, the memories I have. It was still like a piece of fish with an entire blue box of Morton Salt poured on it. But it rocked. And there would be Mamaw, Papaw, my aunt Nadine, Jacob, and me, Mom, Dad, and my sister, all sitting around the table picking our saltfish off the bone and eating it, our faces redder than Satan's hayfork. How we didn't all die immediately from the hypertension I'll never know. Especially since the best side dish you could hope for with salftish was fried potatoes.

And as far as breakfast goes, I was probably in late junior high school before I realized that rice wasn't a breakfast food, nor was it always eaten sweet, with cream and sugar in it. Because in my growing up days, rice was one majorly sublime breakfast. It rivaled salftish and fried potatoes, and had I ever had all three together, the salt, grease, and sugar - well, I probably would have exploded, but really, what a way to go. I tell you, I believe that rice with cream and sugar is just God's love right there in a bowl. It's the supreme comfort food.

Fried okra is fun. Okra is a pretty nasty proposition on its own, but cover it with cornmeal and fry it up in some butter and oil and it becomes to die for. (Of course, frying anything up in butter and oil can only improve it, and I'm sure the day will come when I try fried spaghetti and meatballs, fried peas, fried cake, fried shoe, fried bedspread, etc.) The thing you have to watch out for with fried okra, though, is the snot. You know, okra emits this thick, clear, slimy juice when it's cooked, and you have to be sure and separate that from the fried green pieces you eat. If you don't, the snot, combined with the seeds, well.... Afterwards, it's not pretty. It's not pretty at all. (Actually, in thinking about it, fried squash is way better than fried okra, and you don't have to worry about the snot, nor the unpleasantness afterwards.)

Hey, how do you like your brown beans? More importantly, what do you call your brown beans? Some call them brown beans, or pintos, some call them soup beans, and I guess some don't call them at all, which makes a brown bean very sad indeed. Cook them with a ham hock, please, then go wild. Throw in some chopped onions, or crumble up a nice piece of buttered cornbread into them. There's always the above-mentioned scalded lettuce and onions, kids like ketchup in there sometimes, or even mustard, and Jacob likes to put cottage cheese into hers. But nothing beats a "bean sandwich." Put your beans over a piece of light bread and top with ketchup. Easy on the bean soup for that one, though - makes the bread soggy. Oh, and a helpful hint - after brown beans, don't even get out the Rolaids. They won't help. Nothing does. It's a proven fact; the brown bean is impenetrable.

And speaking of ham, what about country ham? Country ham is cured - I mean, it's cured like the lame at a tent revival. It's so cured it's scary. It comes in a white muslin sack, dry, and has to be soaked overnight, just like saltfish. And it's salty. And tough. It's so hard it could cut your lip. It's an acquired taste, but it's big on our Christmas buffets. And more importantly, around here, there is no such thing as a ham biscuit without country ham between the bread.

Finally, let us not forget snacks. Because of course, what is life without a few snacks? It's not much, that's what it is.

Need a little pick-me-up during your day? How about a vi-ennie weenie (or as you probably call it, a Vienna sausage) dipped in mustard? Or a pickled egg? Boy, do pickled eggs look scary in a jar, sitting there, well, pickling. But once they're cut open, it's a festival! Pink outside, white and yellow inside. How could they not be fun? (Till you run out of Rolaids, anyway.) If you're a milk person, which I'm not, so I can't vouch for it, apparently one of the happiest night-time snacks you can have with your TV-watching is a glass of buttermilk with whatever cornbread was left from dinner crumbled up into it. I've seen people enjoy this a great deal, though I cannot say I have indulged. However, I have induldged in this one. Raw vegetables, your raw potato, raw cabbage, and raw rutabagas or parsnips, which make a good crunchy snack.

I like to go with the simpler joys of snacking. That would be your butter on a cracker. Quick and easy as pie, this is simply a hefty pat of butter (margarine? never!) sat upon a saltine cracker. This may not sound like much, but it's a delicacy of the highest order, and I can vouch for it completely, as I just had a couple of these last night. I could probably live on butter on a cracker, though I doubt I'd live for very long.

So there you have it. Country food 101. Try some, you might like it. You might not. And stock in Rolaids might go through the roof. And if you find saltfish anywhere, tell me about it. I haven't had that stuff in at least 30 years. I'd like to try it again, just to see how red my face gets at my now advanced age.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Acrowinners, we have acrowinners! S, tell me about a blog faux pas.
- Honorable Mention goes to Kellie, with her "Authored Grand Record. Irvin Eventually Sued." Oooh. They say your kids are the first to turn on you.
- Runner-up goes to Flipsycab, with her "Antagonizing gracious reader is electronic suicide." Hee, I like it. Does that mean we all go into each other's comments and say, "Piece of crap!"
- And this week's winner goes to LilyG, with her, "Accosted George. Really. I elicited subpoena." I'd heard about that restraining order he has on you....
- Thanks to all who played, you've all done very well.