Culture: Two nations divided...

[UKRay]

Hey TwinOaks, had some craklin cornbread today with a pot of beans and some porkchops, and If the crick don't rise too much, towards the end of the week My Mamas gonna cook us some chitilins and maws. Down here where I live we boil the chitilins and maws and when they get tender we cut them up and fry them in a spider until just a little crispy, take them up and then fry cornbread fritters in the oil left over from the chitilins. Something to kill for down here in my neck on the woods. In another part of the state they boil the chitilins in a wash pot and then cut them up in pieces about 4 or 5 inches long, then plait the short pieces and deep fry in another wash pot until real crisp. I like our way better, but like their way too. Billy P

As I was saying, we do have some language problems... What are maws? What is a spider (in this context)? What is a wash pot?

Just because I've stopped putting surplus letters into some words doesn't mean I understand American... Okay?

[TwinOaks]

umm Billy is not speaking American English. He's speaking Southernese. Of course, he's speaking the South Carolinian dialect, while I speak Alabamian. Ahem...let me attempt to translate: Maws = hog jowls, spider (in this context) is a pot/large bucket of cooking oil over a propane burner. There's not much to the burner- 3 or more legs and a burner head connected to a regulator and propane tank. Wash tub is a large (usually galvanized steel) tub/bucket holding anywhere from 5 to 50 gallons with handles on the ends. It's called wash tub because depending on the size, they were used to wash clothes, vegtables, or people. Some washtubs might more easily be recognized by you by their other name...trough.

Billy, how'd I do on translatin' your style?

Down here on the coast, we have low country boils.

[UKRay]

Billy P - Hog jowls fried in a bucket or boiled in a trough... Right!

After reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitterlings I could barely hold myself back from jumping on a plane to the Carolinas...

I hardly like to ask about your 'low country boils', TwinOaks, it sounds like a very nasty medical condition. Perhaps you should take yourself off to the vet?

Kate - the saffron is traditional rather than essential. Medieval folk used to like their food to be brightly coloured (okay, colored) and, let's face it, stewed wheat just isn't attractive! see: http://www.history.uk.com/recipes/index.php?archive=6

Stelmackr - cricket is an acquired taste. The Aussies, Kiwis and South Africans have all got to grips with it (far too well in my opinion) and it is only a matter of time before the US realises what it has been missing. A bit like your conversion to proper football (soccer), it is a slow but certain progression. Sumo - who knows? It makes about as much sense to me as American football.

Tashabear - you star! Your frumenty variation is superb; but what is 'hard cider' - I think I want some!

Edited October 15, 2008 by UKRay

[Luke Hatley]

RAY..... TWIN OAK... I WANT TO ADD MY 2CENTS TO IT..

MAWS = PORK STOMACH, YOU ARE RIGHT ON THE WASH TUB... BUT A WASH POT

IS A CAST IORN POT. I HAVE MY GRANDMOTHERS AND IT IS PROBABLY 15 GALLON SIZE

AND ON WASH DAY IT WAS FILLED WITH WATER TO GET HOT TO HAVE A "WASH POT

TO WASH CLOTHES IN". THIS WAS DONE OUTSIDE ON AN OPEN FIRE.

THE SPIDER , IS A FRYING PAN WITH LEGS MOUNTED ON TO IT.

17 TH & 18 TH CENTURY COOKING WAS DONE IN FIRE PLACES AND TO DO ANY FRYING

THEY HAD TO ELEVATE THE SKILLET ABOVE THE FIRE.

*RAY WHEN YOU MAKE IT TO THE MID-SOUTH I PROMIS YOU ALL THE SOUL FOOD

THAT YOU CAN EAT. ALSO THE BAR - B-Q NECKBONES ARE A TASTE TREAT.

Edited October 15, 2008 by Luke Hatley

[Luke Hatley]

BEEN THERE AND DONE THAT..... ATE THAT FOOD AND DONT WANT NONE NO MORE.

I LOVE GRITS, YOU'LL HAVE TO BEAT ME TO MAKE ME EAT OAT MEAL AND I STILL WANT EAT THAT STUFF

Edited October 15, 2008 by Luke Hatley

[UKRay]

*RAY WHEN YOU MAKE IT TO THE MID-SOUTH I PROMIS YOU ALL THE SOUL FOOD

THAT YOU CAN EAT. ALSO THE BAR - B-Q NECKBONES ARE A TASTE TREAT.

I reckon that will be a trip to remember, Luke. My 'Smokey Mountains fund' is growing with every bit of leather I sell... I just have so much I want to see and do that I don't know where I'll find the time to fit it all in.

[TwinOaks]

Well, I guess there's still some regional differences betwixt us. Ray, a low country boil is a seafood cookout, where EVERYTHING is thrown into a 55 gal drum, and a bonfire is built around it to get it to boil. To serve the food, dump most of the water (using welding or noodling gloves) then up end the drum on a sheet of plywood set on trestles. There's a splash of near boiling water, then just a big pile of boiled food. There's no plates, napkins, or manners. I think it probably evolved from large 'community' soup/stews made by the river folks back in the old days.....check that...the really old days. You know, the '50s.

"...sounds like a medical condition...." And you called ME droll.

[tashabear]

Tashabear - you star! Your frumenty variation is superb; but what is 'hard cider' - I think I want some!

Regular apple cider is cloudy juice from pressed apples -- it's less acidic than apple juice. Hard cider is fermented so it's alcoholic. Apparently we have a long tradition of hard cider here in New England, and it is yummy. Everyone in the US thinks Yankee food is boring, but how can you argue with a regional culture that serves apple pie for breakfast? My favorite meal ever, though, is my mom's boiled dinner: smoked shoulder of ham boiled in a big pot with cabbage, baby onions, potatoes, and carrots. (I think my husband would find it perfect if we tossed a turnip in there, too.) Everything takes on the flavor of the ham and it's just delicious. And then for dessert we have blueberry grunt, which is dumplings cooked in blueberry sauce.

...I just made myself drool.

Edited October 15, 2008 by tashabear

[UKRay]

Well, I guess there's still some regional differences betwixt us. Ray, a low country boil is a seafood cookout, where EVERYTHING is thrown into a 55 gal drum, and a bonfire is built around it to get it to boil. To serve the food, dump most of the water (using welding or noodling gloves) then up end the drum on a sheet of plywood set on trestles. There's a splash of near boiling water, then just a big pile of boiled food. There's no plates, napkins, or manners. I think it probably evolved from large 'community' soup/stews made by the river folks back in the old days.....check that...the really old days. You know, the '50s.

Oh My! And is this a seasonal thing Mike? Do I need to re-arrange my trip dates? BTW: I'll ignore the suggestion that anything from the 50s is really old...

There was a programme (program) on British TV about noodling recently - is that for real? Catfish? Underwater... but I'm fairly sure those guys didn't wear gloves...

I just picked up on this seemingly random comment by Jordan in another thread that seems to fit well right here: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?s...5223&st=100 - How would you cook a bucketmouth and what does it taste like?

Luke: I'll need to find a spider to take home... we definitely don't have them over here!

Tashabear: Apple pie for breakfast... Blueberry dumplings... Am I starting this trip at the wrong end of the country? You'll doubtless be entertained (and maybe a little envious) to know that I will be eating a boiled ham dinner tonight.

Explanation needed: the word Yankee seems to be used in a number of ways, both in a positive sense and in a pejorative sense - I need to understand this better. If a person from the south says 'Yankee' they seem to invest a certain 'something' into it. If person from the north says 'Yankee' they seem to be intensely proud of it.

Also, I really enjoy watching Steve and Norm build houses on TV and am fascinated by Norm working in the 'New Yankee Workshop' but have never worked out why it is called that. Is it a new workshop or is New Yankee one of those things that 'you have to be there' to understand?

Have any of you tried black pudding?

Edited October 15, 2008 by UKRay

[tashabear]

As far as I'm concerned, being that I was born and raised in Massachusetts, a Yankee is anyone who is from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, or Rhode Island. (Unless you're a member of that baseball team from New York, in which case you suck. )

To a Southerner, it's anyone from north of the Mason-Dixon line. To someone from outside the US, it's someone from the US. Southerners tend to invest the word with the certain special "something" because of the Civil War. Personally, I'm proud to be a Yankee, because my family settled here as colonists before the Revolution, on both sides (though my mom's family was in Georgia and then Canada, because they were Loyalists).

Norm Abram's show is called the New Yankee Workshop because he demonstrates techniques using power tools to create traditional New England furniture styles, whereas they traditionally would be made using hand tools. Apparently there is some controversy over that, which is ironic, considering that the circular saw was invented in 1813 by a Shaker woman from my hometown of Harvard, Massachusetts, named Tabitha Babbitt. There's a Babbitt Lane in Harvard to this very day.

I haven't even started about the joys of fresh clam chowder or Maine lobster taken off the boat that very morning. You could always fly in to Logan and start there!