A Muff or Not

 Most of you know I was brought up in South Carolina, a state where "winter" weather is limited to 6 weeks in February and March. Maybe every 4 or 5 years snow will fall, generally just enough to cover the ground and cause mass pandemonium. 

All that said, my mother had certain ideas in her head of things that were proper. Not necessarily practical but proper.

There was a piece of "Winter" apparel Mama thought I needed to have and use. Beyond a scarf and gloves which were rarely used, Mama decided I needed a muff, a full white rabbit hare muff.

For those of you not familiar, a muff is defined as "a tube made of fur or other warm material into which the hands are placed for warmth". Such as this one as seen in the 1880's, in Europe where there is a true cold winter 4 months of the year. Memories of the snowy sleigh scenes in Dr. Zhivago come to mind, not the "chilly" winter days in South Carolina where the temperatures rarely drop below 40.

This is definitely not the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of South Carolina. 

So in December, I would be dressed for church in my short sleeve velvet dress, black patent leather shoes, short white socks, and a muff. If it were cold enough I may have had on a sweater or a coat. But this begs the question - if it is not cold enough to wear tights or a coat, what in Sam Hell's name does one do with a muff? Well, in my case, thankfully (or maybe not), it came with a lanyard that went around my neck, preventing me from losing the blasted thing. Just for the record it is a very efficient hand warmer.

This all comes to mind the other night when I was watching a movie (the story line being in Europe) and one of the ladies had a brown fur muff. In that instance, it looked appropriate. Of course the story line was based in the Victorian Era and it was the winter season. (As in snow on the ground and temperatures in the low 20's).

I spared my daughters of this ridiculousness. I'm not sure they even know what a muff is. 

Don't get me wrong, in the right weather  (very cold), and the right situation (one that includes a lot of snow and a sleigh), a muff would be an appropriate piece of apparel. And next time, I find myself in that situation, I will no doubt be unprepared without a muff.

Perhaps, I should thank Mama. If nothing else, she prepared me for the $500 question on Jeopardy,  under the category of "Obsolete Victorian Winter Accessories" -  the clue being "The fur tube Victorian women used to keep their hands warm." Ding, Ding, Ding - "What is a muff?"

It's not called Barbecue, Stupid, Unless it Really is!

Let me clear one thing up right now. If you are in your backyard and the activity you are engaged in includes cooking some type of beef, hot dogs, or sausage on a grill, be it charcoal (or God forbid gas, imho, real men don't cook on gas grills, but I digress) you are "Cooking Out" not "Barbecuing". To Barbecue you need some form of pork, some type of wood that will provide good smoke flavor, a secret rub, sauce (or both), and a lot of time to make it right. Bottom line, if you have ever had honest to God good southern Barbecue, you know the difference, you'll never forget it, and you'll be trying to figure out how to come back for more.

Up north, they call any cooking out of doors "Barbecuing". Like with a lot of things, as my Aunt Kat would say, "They can't help it, they just don't know any better". We try to explain this to our friends who are not from 'round here. Being a self proclaimed grill-miester is thing of pride with southern men (and women). This is something we take damn seriously. When one says, "Why don't you guys come over tonight? We're going to Barbecue steaks." Any southern cook within ear shot will reply something like this: "You don't Barbecue steaks! You grille steaks. And, for the hundredth time, you are not Barbecuing - you are Cooking Out."

Don't get me wrong, we love our hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled chicken and thick steaks down here. Cooking out is a favorite past time of ours.  Southern men collect grilles like notches on their belts. I grew up grilling steaks every Friday night. I'm not sure where (or when) that tradition started.  Cooking outside is an ingrained part of our lifestyle.

Now maybe to someone not from here this is a trivial argument over semantics. But in the South it is gospel, because Barbecue is a religion. Preparing and eating it is a religious experience. And among the faithful, there are the different denominations. You can worship in the houses of mustard based, ketchup based, or vinegar based. Then there are the hard core "evangelicals" who always want ribs. What ever your belief, in the south, we go hog wild. We rub it, baste it, smoke it, cook it real slow over hickory, then we pull it and, ever so lightly, put sauce on it. Does that sound like throwing steaks on a grille in the backyard to you?

Road Kill

Last spring, the first sign the pandemic was getting bad down here was the disappearing evidence of road kill. Especially prime meat like opossum and squirrel. And deer, now there's a prize if you bring it down with your dad's F150 instead of the 12 gauge - no buck shot to clean. And, the truck's so old no one can tell the dent is new. Everyone 'round here has a yard truck or a fishing car, the old vehicle that has so much sentimental attachment you just couldn't bare to part with it. Besides, it still runs and the duct tape on the front seat matches that darn gray replacement rear fender you never bothered to get painted.The left blinker doesn't work, but that's OK, it's not like it's NASCAR or something, just make right turns instead of left ones. 

I bet women up north don't have jumper cables in their cars (or trucks). When I was old enough to get my driver's license, my father would not let me go down to the highway department (the one next to the Bar-B-Que place) until I could do three things: change a tire, change the oil in my car, and drive a car with a clutch and the gear shift on the column (am I showing my age or what!) He wasn't concerned about my ability to safely maneuver the vehicle. I had been doing that for years on the farm.

I started out with a used blue AMC Gremlin. Remember those classic automobiles? It had no carpet, no AC, an AM radio, and manual transmission. You could safely say it was as bare bones as it got. For some reason my parents wanted to make sure I knew my place in life. And, let me tell you when you drive up to the Country Club every afternoon for tennis team practice in that jewel and park it next to the Mercedes, Buicks, and Cadillacs, let's just say, it makes a statement. It was humbling to say the least.

But, we still try to drive our cars for at least ten years. I'm not one that needs a fancy car to impress the neighbors or have that "itch" some folks have every time the new models come out. (Although I do not deny my passionate desire for a Porsche Carerra. We all can dream.) The idea is to have safe, reliable, comfortable transportation. Of course, it helps if it is well constructed so if you happen to hit that deer for dinner, you can easily throw it across the hood and bring it home. Otherwise your pickings will be limited to opossum, rabbit, squirrel, and the occasional coon. And, that's a lot of work.

God's Plan

God blessed the south with many things - good food, friendly people, beautiful land. OK, so the rest of the world questions why we put 4 syllables in the words "hound dog" and are amazed at our chemical wizardry of being able to dissolve 1 pound of sugar in 1 gallon of iced tea.  

Folks not from here find it odd that we continue names for generations (William Pinckney Gadsen, William Pinckney Gadsen, Jr, the third, fourth, etc), but yet call them, Pinky, Bo, Trey, and Bub. It is not unusual for young ladies to have double names: Mary Grace, Sarah Kay, Ann Stuart. And, in the more "remote" regions: Bobby Jean, Billy Sue, Johnny Beth.

Children from good southern families (not necessarily always wealthy) have good manners, respect their elders, know how to dance, understand that socks and collards are best only after the first frost, seersucker suits are acceptable for any occasion before six in the evening, and a string of pearls makes any outfit (except a swimsuit). 

There is no such thing as a "grit". Bacon and gravy are staples of the food pyramid, and a good pound cake can cure many ills and make amends for many wrongs. One doesn't make fun of someone who doesn't know how to eat an oyster, wears white shoes after Labor Day, brings store bought potato salad to a church picnic, or wears polyester - they just don't know any better. 

Given all these idiosyncrasies of our culture, we find ourselves under assault by others. Whether they are coming to visit, or God forbid, relocating down here, the Yankees are invading. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting one. But the old man upstairs foresaw this. In his grand plan he had a 3 part strategy in mind for protecting us - no see-ums (gnats), mosquitoes, and August. 

So as we move into the Hades part of our year, fighting the gnats and mosquitoes, I realize it is all God's plan to keep the Yankees away. Unfortunately, it is not working.  

Fry It, You'll Like It

"Fried Pickles"? Should I be surprised? No. We fry everything down here. In fact someone said, "Southerners don't age, they just drop dead". If you look at the list of foods we fry, you would know why. But, we die happy.

Now, I'm not talking about silly things like Snickers candy bars, Twinkie's, Oreo's, or Coca Cola. Yes, there are folks out there who "fry" Coca Cola. Talk about the ultimate oxymoron - Fried Diet Coke! I'm talking about real food, meats and vegetables. And, when it comes to frying, we don't stop with chicken, potatoes, or fish, we go to the next level - chicken livers, gizzards (which are actually giblets), chitlins (the viscera intestines of a pig) (Note here: I don't eat all this.), okra, green tomatoes, hush puppies, sweet potatoes, and the list goes on. - alligator, squash, mushrooms. It's all going to taste better fried.

We like it "deep fried" not just pan fried. Any serious (honest) cook will tell you that the best fried foods are fried in lard (or Crisco, a close 2nd choice) not any kind of healthy oil and in a well cured cast iron skillet. We may die early, but by God when we go, we go out most contented having eaten well during our short life span.

The State Fair of Texas fancies itself as the "Fried Food Capitol of Texas". In my mind, it may have been game, set, match when in 2009 they gave the Big Tex Food Award in creativity to a concessionaire for "Deep Fried Butter" described as "100% pure butter whipped 'til light and fluffy, then specially sweetened with a choice of several flavors. The tantalizing mixture is surrounded by a special dough and quick fried." I don't think this can be topped as the ultimate fried dish - not that I would ever eat it. But then again, in Texas they fry pecan pies.