Memories steeped in sweet tea

The State ^ | Jan. 30, 2002 | Jay C. Grelen

[TontoKowalski]

OK, that's two posts lauding the benefits of Luzianne brand. Is it better than Lipton? Now, in my house, my wife (a non-tea drinking Californian: Yankee) makes me tea using Lipton's, but that's just because my Mama taught her how, and that's what Mama has always used.

I confess that I have switched to Equal instead of using sugar, to cut back on the calories. I'll sometimes drink two pitchers a day, and the sugar is just too much...

Lemon is OK, so is mint. But I'll skip the unsweet tea. BTW, Equal does a better job than sugar in sweeting iced tea in the glass.

[TontoKowalski]

I never minded picking butterbeans.

Oh, butterbeans were the worst to pick. With peas, you could just walk down the rows and pick by the handful. With butterbeans, you practically have to roll around in the dirt, because they're so close to the ground.

On second thought, okra was the worst to gather, because it itched.

[KateUTWS]

My Granny used to serve sweet tea in an Autumn Leaf pitcher at every meal in the warm weather.

I didn't know she was southern!

She was raised in land-locked Utah and ran a boarding house. She was the best cook in Utah county! I have recently aquired the pitcher she used and I will make sweet tea today (It's 5 degrees outside).Is Lipton's OK?

Comfort food.

[billbears]

LOL!! I remember the first time I went out of the South on a trip with my family. Couldn't have been more than 10 years old at the time. We stopped into a restaurant up near Washington DC. All of us ordered tea to drink. The waitress brought the unsweetened tea and when my father asked for sweet tea, the waitress made the comment that there was sugar on the table.

[aomagrat]

A Taste of Luzianne

[sweetliberty]

"With butterbeans, you practically have to roll around in the dirt, because they're so close to the ground"

You didn't use poles?

[TontoKowalski]

No, Daddy liked the kind that were little bushes, about a foot high. Two feet if you were lucky. The beans hung down on the underside of the bush. I have to admit that they were wonderful beans, but what a pain to pick. Hoeing was no picnic, but it beat picking them.

He always planted a HUGE garden, and as the boy in the family, I was expected to do my part. (My sister's chores were inside the house. She thought I was lucky. In retrospect, we were both lucky.) I'd get stationed at one end of a row with a large bucket and be told to get started. There were many rows, and they went on and on and on...

[aomagrat]

You didn't use poles?

My grandfather planted corn and beans together so the beans would grow up the corn stalks.

[sweetliberty]

Do y'all remember Golden Crown syrup? It came in a blue can with a gold crown on it.

[aomagrat]

I don't remember the name, but granny had a can of syrup that had a lid like a paint can. That was some strong syrup!

[sweetliberty]

"I don't remember the name, but granny had a can of syrup that had a lid like a paint can. That was some strong syrup!"

It was that type of can. It was rich stuff. i never tasted anything like it since. It was SO good.

[-YYZ-]

I like black tea. My parents have a very British background, so it used to be our beverage of choice. We only made hot tea, but I love the cold variety too. What peeves me is asking for tea and getting a cup of hot water with a teabag in it. You can't make tea that way. Proper tea requires steeping the tea bags (or loose tea) in water that starts off nearly boiling, it can't be done in a cup. I like it strong, really strong. Red Rose and Tetley are the big brands up here (in Canada).
Now as to iced tea, I'd always had it cold, sweetened and with lemon. When I was younger, we were travelling through the north east and I got iced tea at a service center Burger King. It was unsweetened, with no lemon either. Yuck! That's not iced tea to me, just cold tea.

[TontoKowalski]

I don't remember the brand, but it had the "paint can" lid on it. A little dab would do you...

I've enjoyed this thread so much. It brings back fond memories. My grandmother, raised in the rural South during the depression, was fanatic about canning and freezing vegetables. My wife does it now, but it's not because she HAS to like the fine women from my family did.

Of course, our backyard garden is really just some tomato plants, cucumbers, okra, and maybe a few beans. It certainly can't rival the scope of the gardens of my boyhood.

My grandmother also made Tomato Gravy. Which was home canned tomatoes mixed with a little bacon grease and water and salt and pepper and simmered in an iron skillet. Served over biscuits. My wife makes in now with her home canned tomatos, and it is a huge hit. It must be a Mississippi thing, because other Southerners I've met have never heard of it. It was a breakfast staple during my childhood.

You have got to try it. It can be made with storebought tomatoes, but home canned is much better. The biscuits must be made from scratch, but you don't seem to be a wop-biscuit kind of lady anyway.

[twigs]

Silver Queen corn sure makes me smile

Agree entirely. This new corn is so sweet I might as well eat a sugar cube. My husband tells me I am just hopelessly old fashioned liking Silver Queen. He had me thinking that I was the only one who remembers and likes it.

[twigs]

Sun tea

Yes. Apparently it is so. I reluctantly stopped making it years ago.

[Squantos]

What the reasoning for it ! Would like to know if ya have time to educate me.

Thanks and Stay safe !

[twigs]

Although I'm from VA, I never did much like sweet tea. One summer while a youth director at a church in Waynesboro, I organized a picnic and was responsible for the tea. Since I didn't like sweet tea, I assumed--wrongly--that others would not like it either. So I made it w/o sugar and put sugar beside it. People were furious and I heard about it for the rest of the summer. So much for gracious southerners, much less Christians! The complaining left me with a lesson I'll never forget. Now I make sweet and unsweet tea separately when around southerners!

[aomagrat]

So much for gracious southerners, much less Christians!

The only thing that'll rile southerners more than ice tea is BBQ.

[twigs]

For the life of me, Squantos, I cannot remember exactly what happens to the tea. A neighbor of mine at the time read about the problem about the same time that I did and after discussing it, we both agreed that we should use more care in making it. B/c I worked, I could not bring it in after 3 hours, which was the maximum length of time that it should be left out. Herbal teas are particularly prone. I began making it in the refrigerator. Now I like that almost as much. Almost!

[riley1992]

That's because you are a Yankee.

Hahahaha. Prove it.