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THE PERFECT DAY OF TRUE GRITS AND SALTED BLACK-EYED PEAS
Bill, the guy from Up North, is visiting Alabama for the first time, and he is poking at his food as if it might be hiding a live squirrel.
We’re having an expense-account dinner, trying to entice him into moving down south by introducing him to our exotic food, our southern hospitality culture.
Bill is making a effort to slow down and sync up with our slow southern rhythms.
Finally, he reaches down into a serving of black-eyed peas, picks one up, examines it closely and says, “Is this a grit?”
At this moment, we realize this is not going to be easy, this baptism-by-food initiation.
Earlier, looking over the menu, Bill asks, “What is this OCK-ruh dish?” We know he’s never known the pleasures of okra. As James Dickey once said, “If God made anything better than okra, he held it back for himself.”
Just for the record, here’s how you eat black-eyed peas, assuming they have been carefully and correctly prepared:
First, you shake lots of salt on the peas, followed by ground pepper and maybe even some pepper sauce. Then, like all true Deep South connoisseurs, you shake a heap of catsup upon them.
Don’t laugh. Everybody in my family does this, and the result is delicious. Try it.
What we try to get across to Bill is the fact that it’s not the plain-and-simple southern food that tastes great, it’s the stuff you add to it in correct proportions.
For instance here’s how you eat grits, assuming they have been carefully and lovingly prepared:
Make sure they are piping hot. Salt and pepper them. Add a dollop or two of butter, some cheese, even a touch of garlic, then vigorously stir them. Prepare ye for a transformative experience.
Something not to do if you want to immerse yourself in true dining ecstasy: Never, never eat grits plain, with no flavoring. They will taste like steamed particle board and you will never go near them again. Lots of visitors to the south have done this, and they are now lost souls, condemned forever to living on Ovaltine and non-iced, non-lemoned iced tea.
Ever gone to a Chicago diner and ordered iced tea? You’ll get that blank stare reserved only for aliens from far planets.
Down Here, there are things one does not do. We don’t put gravy on good steak. We will tolerate hash browns only if you have run out of grits. We know the difference between flavorless raw spinach leaves and hot, pork-flavored over-cooked tasty spinach.
And so on.
After all, what Bill needs to understand is that the South is a wonderful, friendly and warm place to live, but you must learn the rules about good food in order to truly enjoy yourself.
And the correct way to prepare barbecue is an entirely different story for a later time.
Does Bill “get it” and learn to relax around southern cuisine? Er, southern eating?
Don’t know. He disappears and is never heard from again.
Which means we get to divide up his servings
© 2016 A.D. by Jim Reed
http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast