One might think that American food is American food, but there are some pretty distinct differences that have caused me to ask whoever is standing next to me, "Sorry if this makes me sound stupid, but what is that?" Do you know how difficult it is to ask that question without sounding offended or horrified by what I see?
Now, my dietary restrictions make it necessary that I know what is in everything I eat, so I'm used to asking in a restaurant, "Pardon me, but does your version of rice pilaf contain corn?" But asking what a food item is simply because I can't figure it out is kind of new territory.
Fortunately the main courses were easy enough: baked chicken, fried chicken, country-fried pork. Yeah, every meal has been served with fried chicken and it is glorious. But here's a partial list of what I couldn't identify:
- Chicken dumplings: It seems in the south the word "dumpling" is a bit more flexible, in this case referring to flat noodle-like additions to the stew portion. myB tells me it's also often referred to as "chicken slick." I don't even want to consider.
- Green beans: Pronounced with heavy emphasis on the first word. I've seen green beans cooked before. But this was unlike any green beans I'd ever seen. (brilliantine, clean, careen, e'en, glean, jean, lean, mean, queen, tureen, wean; wanted to get that vowel sound out of my system) They appeared to have diameters at least twice what I ever see, and were cut into about one-inch pieces, and were quite gray with no sauce on them. Nobody batted an eye and took lots, so I assume this was normal.
- Fat back: Not just a concern in brassiere-purchasing any more! This is actually a food item. Do you really want to know? Fine. It's essentially bacon made from pig skin and the layer of fat just under the skin. Looks kind of like french fries if you don't focus; you can tell what side was the skin if you do focus. I'm told it tastes like bacon. I will never know first-hand.
- Collard greens: A very stereotyped southern dish. I'd heard of them but never actually seen them. They look deceptively like cooked chopped spinach, but were being served in a huge pan and weren't mushy like spinach gets after about 14 seconds. Not offensive or scary in any way, I just avoided them in case.
- Fried squash: These looked like little fried cakes made of bread crumbs and some vegetable. It seems you make them by slicing a squash, dip and bread it, then deep fry it. Skin and seeds, held together by a little fiber-y pulp and oil-crisped bread crumbs and egg wash. Heck, throw a bit of jalapeño in there and I'll have everything I can't eat!
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You are really experiencing some delicacies! You probably won't get any Hoppin' John (drop the "g," please) that far upsate, but I can make you some sometime. I believe you also mentioned you'd seen more than your fair share of sweet potatoes, too.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're asking about things. There is nothing a southerner likes more than showing a Yankee how little he knows. It works in reverse, too...I can't tell you the number of times I've turned on the southern accent to get what I need in the heathen north. The difference is that Yankees think Southerners are stupid (and thus incapable of doing the right thing), while Southerners usually just look at Yankees with pity. As if being raised on catfish and hush puppies could have made them into a normal person, but they had the misfortune of being born "up there."
Isn't Jumpin' Jesus full of stuff I can't eat, like beans and corn and spices and stuff? And it's good that y'all are kind enough to act on your pity instead of just shaking your heads, saying "bless his heart," and walking away.
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