Nostalgia on ice: Cold, sugary tea is a sweet Southern tradition

wilmington star ^ | 13 June 2007 | Lisa Singhania

[Tokra]

Don’t make him struggle with metaphorical names more than he already seems to do. :)

I am struggling to understand your comment. I do know what a metaphor is, but I don't know what your comment means.

[ßuddaßudd]

Sweet Tea and Boild Peanuts !!!!! will keep you going all day long....

[Tokra]

Heresy! Chicken fried steak is food of the gods. You must have had a bad one.

A good steak tossed on the grill for about 20 seconds is what I call food of the gods.

Any steak cooked to shoe-leather is a bad one.

[cyclotic]

I had just gotten into a small town in Alabama. 3 co-workers and I were at dinner in this small local steakhouse. I asked the wiatress if they had sweet tea. There was a collective intake of breat by the other diners. Forks dropped on to plates with a clang as the waitress said “wail, of course we dooo.” Translated she said “You stupid yankee, we got nothing but sweet tea down here.”

For the record, I love sweet tea and try to support establishments in the north that serve it.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

We're getting some very nice green beans from this market too. Last week I made a monster batch which contained:
6 pounds of green beans (ends snapped).
4 nice chopped Vidalia onions.
1 small Hormel ham cut into cubes.
15 little red new potatoes, sliced into quarters.
Good stuff !

[JamesP81]

Um..um..um. Now, THAT’S a culinary art. My mother's homemade chocolate pie each and every Christmas with mounds of real homemade unsweetened whipped cream. Yeah, I was the only girl in the family who didn't get the recipe and I was my mother's only child. I think she did that so I'd have to come and find her on the other side. "You want that recipe, kid? Come and find me." ;-)

My grandpa had the false modesty thing going. You have to realize that, first of all, this guy didn't strike you as the cook type. He was a hardcore southerner from rural Kentucky (and so is everyone else in the family, including me). He was in the Navy in WW2 and spent the following forty years working as an engineer for a couple of towboat outfits, finally retiring from Ingram Towing. This is when he picked up his cooking skills. He got the recipes from the cooks on the boat. He was hard, but friendly, had a good sense of humor and could cuss like a sailor because, hey, he was one.

Anyway, you've got a good picture of him now. Last year about this time, I'm sitting in my Meemaw's kitchen eating some of that wonderful pecan pie, and he comes ambling in from his perch in the living room after reading the paper. He takes a sidelong glance at my pie platter and says, 'bah! That pie ain't no count.'

This is exactly the same thing he's said about every single thing he's cooked for the past 25 years of my life, and probably for the entire length of his own life as well. And all of it was great no matter what he said.

So I looked at him and I said, "you know Pa, for as long as I can remember, all 25 of my years, you've said that about everything you've ever cooked."

He paused and considered this for a second, and finally nodded his head and said, "I know." Then he paused a second longer before he said, "But by God, this time it really ISN'T any count."

It took me an hour to quit laughing.

[part deux]

Grits with sugar...never tried. I prefer butter or olive oil on top of my grits.

[Maigrey]

You should, when you get a chance, try the sweet tea at a franchise named McAlister’s. It’s to die for.....

[Constitutions Grandchild]

STOP! You’re making me crazy!!! I can taste them now. I want to come to YOUR house.

[Constitutions Grandchild]

Your story makes me want to hug him. I know his cut and jib. Next time you see him (and make that sooner than later, sonny) give him a hug from me.

[ravingnutter]

I drink unsweetened and un-lemoned (I tell them “lose the fruit!”) tea too. Brewed Lipton is great...that Nestea crap some of the restaurants serve down here in South Texas is NOT tea! It’s just nasty! I don’t use sugar of any kind, in anything. It gives me a such a sugar high that I get all jittery and then I crash and want to go to sleep, I just can’t handle it.

[TKDietz]

I live in the South and have for more than forty years and I can’t recall ever being in a restaurant where all they had was sweet tea. Usually they have both sweetened or unsweetened iced tea, or just unsweetened tea you add your own sweetener to.

[JamesP81]

Your story makes me want to hug him. I know his cut and jib. Next time you see him (and make that sooner than later, sonny) give him a hug from me.

Well, God willing, that'll be a long time from now as he took his last voyage home to Heaven's Shores this past December.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I used to prepare the ham by cutting up a half pound of bacon into little bits and putting a little scald on the ham in the grease. Wife suggested cutting out the pork bacon so last time I switched to turkey bacon which gives a little smoky flavor.
Mom always served this with cornbread.

[Daffynition]

Switchel anyone?

[luckystarmom]

I’m from Texas and I hate sweet tea. When I’m in Texas, I can easily get unsweetened tea just about anywhere.

In Canada and Seatle, I couldn’t get it.

In California (where I live), some places have it and some just carry the rasberry snapple type tea that I can’t stand.

I know lots of Texans that just drink unsweetened tea.

[Constitutions Grandchild]

Well, then, now I can send him a hug through my prayers. I’d have liked him, I know. So, if Grandma is still keepin’ on, tell her and give HER the hug.

[luckystarmom]

Us Texans are sure chiming into the unsweetened tea.

Of course, we’re a little different than the other southerners.

[L98Fiero]

“A good steak tossed on the grill for about 20 seconds is what I call food of the gods.

Any steak cooked to shoe-leather is a bad one.”

Apples and oranges. Chicken-fried steak is originally from the poorest cuts of beef. Beating the hell out of it, breading it and frying it for a bit actually did it some good. You’ll find that many Southern dishes are based on what rural poor people could get.

[Constitutions Grandchild]

I hear what the Missus is saying, but for us die-hards, there’s nothing like real bacon. However, nothing you can say will dissuade me. What time is dinner? ;-) My son and his father are working late tonight. I can be there by — oh, well, never mind. You’ll be in bed by then.