I “first” joined Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks on its “first” year in 2014… and what a whirlwind year that was… writing, editing, researching daily for 365 days! As much as I wanted to continue the following year, I found that I didn’t have the time to continue another year with that type of research… I was burnt out! I did continue blogging and writing stories at my own pace, which allowed me to write on other topics as well as family stories… but I’ve often missed it. The first year were no specific weekly prompts like today. If you’re interested in checking out my 2014 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks from my first year’s challenge… click the link above… and read over here for my return in 2019 for another 52 weeks challenge. My real challenge this year will arrive in April, as I also write yearly in the A-to-Z Challenge of daily writing… often planned on a specific topic. I’m definitely going to need a vacation after that month… but!
All Mixed Up… in Foods and Language
Few consider how food and language can become entangled when relocating to a different part of the world, or even another state within the United States. I encountered a significant shift when I relocated from the southern state of Georgia to the northern state of Connecticut.
Growing up, Southern words and foods were all I knew. Was there something different beyond what I ate or heard? Indeed, there was a whole world out there that I was oblivious to until I married and relocated to another region in my own country. Moving to Connecticut felt like moving to a different world… as the land, houses, roads, and food all looked so foreign to me!
While living in Georgia, the closest I’d ever come to learning about how different people eat and talk was when working a short two weeks at Risher’s Restaurant… in my small hometown of Perry, Georgia. After those two weeks, I decided that waitressing just wasn’t for me!
On my first night at the restaurant, my first job, and my debut, was a waitress, I quickly encountered new foods and language which puzzled me. My initial customers were a group of boys who asked for “pop” drinks. Confused by the term, I, a sixteen-year-old girl not wanting to appear ignorant, hastily replied, “We’re all out.” Their response came swift, “You don’t have any Coke?” To which I said, “Oh, yes, we have Coke.” They laughed and teased this Southern young girl repeatedly on every visit to their table. Back in Georgia, we never used the word “Pop”; everything was a “Coke,” and then you specified which kind… Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, or another, but it always began with “I’ll have a Coke!” My personal favorite besides Coke… Cherry Coke.
After surviving the ordeal with the boys from Ohio and their Coke order, I was immediately tasked with serving a senior couple en-route to Florida. The wife asked for tea, which seemed simple enough, so I served her a tall glass of our Southern sweet tea. Wrong! As soon as I set the glass down, she exclaimed, “This is not what I ordered.” And so, it began again! She quickly informed me that she had ordered a cup of hot tea. Back to the kitchen I returned to ask, “What is hot tea?” Armed with new knowledge, I soon presented her with a coffee cup filled with hot water and a tea bag dangling inside… while an odd sight to me, but it was precisely what she desired. It wasn’t until my move to Connecticut that I saw anyone drink hot tea again.
I often took the short walk downtown after school to sit on a stool at Perry Drugs’ fountain, where I’d order my favorite… a cherry coke and smashed toast – an unusual yet memorable combination. The smashed toast was simply buttered toast, flattened and toasted until crisp on both sides. As I write this, the taste almost comes back to me, and oddly enough, many in my Perry Facebook group recall it as their favorite after-school snack too. I could go for an order right now! My mother worked downtown, so it was always easier to walk there, instead of home, and catch a ride home with Mama.
In asking hubby what he would have ordered at his local soda fountain… if he had an extra quarter… “I always a black and white… which was made with chocolate syrup, vanilla ice cream and seltzer. It was more a milkshake, enjoyed with a spoon.” Oddly enough, after living here over 53 years, I’ve never tried one. Time to give it a try!
I married an airman stationed at Warner Robins Air Force Base, originally from Connecticut. My life took an unexpected turn when my husband introduced me to his parents. I soon encountered an array of unfamiliar foods and a completely different way of speaking. Initially, I was hesitant about many of these new dishes, but they since have become some of my favorites. While I still cherish my Southern classics, my culinary tastes have expanded to embrace a variety of new flavors.
Upon arrival, my mother-in-law prepared her son’s favorite dishes of… pasta with meatballs, lasagna, and eggplant… and I’m sure I likely shuffled those unfamiliar foods around on my plate. My Mama exclusively cooked Southern cuisine… fried chicken, mashed potatoes, butter beans, black-eyed peas, green beans, turnip greens, and fried cream-style corn, always accompanied by her homemade biscuits and cornbread. Our kitchen never saw pizza, eggplant, or lasagna. In today’s world, my Southern family and friends enjoy many of the same dishes we do, but back in the 50s and 60s, Italian eateries were unheard of in my small hometown of Perry.
I was excited to introduce my new family to my favorite Southern dishes, though mastering the cooking took some time. One of the first recipes I attempted was Mama’s Southern fried chicken, a dish celebrated worldwide. I followed her method, marinating the chicken in buttermilk before coating it in flour and frying it to a perfect golden brown. To drain them, I used a brown paper bag on the counter, just as Mama did. She would place the freshly fried chicken pieces from her cast iron skillet into the bag. Not only was it ideal for draining with a layer of paper towels inside, but it also kept the chicken warm until it was time to serve.
My mother-in-law soon began teaching me how to cook… how to cook all her son’s Italian favorites… which was pretty much everything Italian. While they had the mind-set of didn’t everyone eat this way… my mind pretty much went in the other direction of… why didn’t they eat as I did! Soon… well, rather several years later, I became a “great” (hubby says) Italian cook and through the help of my mother… long distance… I learned to finally master cook my beloved Southern favorites.
My new in-laws were perplexed when I first asked for some food items, when I lived with them during my husband’s deployment in Thailand. The initial time I requested sweet milk, my mother-in-law gave me a puzzled look and offered regular milk instead. Little did I know, in the South, it’s common to have both sweet (regular) milk and tangy buttermilk in the fridge, so one must specify. I never acquired a taste for the tangy buttermilk, but it was always on the refrigerator shelf, as Mama enjoyed it. I occasionally purchase it for recipes today, but it’s not always stocked in local markets. Luckily, I can create a substitute by adding a bit of lemon juice or white vinegar to regular milk; a great saver, when it’s not normally kept in your fridge.
Whenever Mama visited in Connecticut, which was rare, I would attempt to serve her one of the Italian dishes I had recently mastered… but she often wanted no part of them. No pizza… No pasta… No anything with “hot” tomato sauce as she would put it… but she often tried a dessert or two, if chocolate was a part of it. She did have a sweet tooth of everything chocolate! She ate so much chocolate ice cream in one of her phases of being fixated on a certain food… that it spiked up her potassium levels dangerously high… prompting her doctor to demand she stop immediately. That’s when I learned that excessive levels of potassium can affect your heart! Who would have thought?
Hearing others reminisce… “I remember standing by my grandmother as she cooked,” or “I often helped my mother in the kitchen“… fills me with sadness. I lack these memories! Why? My mother has often told me that I showed no interest helping in the kitchen… always making myself scarce when it came time to prepare dinner. It seems I inherited this disinterest in cooking from Mama, as she often shared tales of her own aversion to the kitchen, preferring instead to join her father at the field’s edge as he plowed. If she lingered near the house or within earshot, she’d be quickly assigned chores… such as lining up water buckets on the back porch… a task she found pointless given the well was within walking distance off the back porch. Despite her reluctance, I imagine Grandmama often caught up with her to carry those buckets… against her will.
Mama serving up one of her so-loved breakfasts in Georgia
It was only much later in life, during family vacations to visit Mama, that I began to hang out in her kitchen of my own accord… attentively observing her every move as she cooked. One summer, after returning home, I dedicated myself to perfecting her renowned Southern biscuits, practicing daily until my hands could replicate the “softness” of the dough just as she had. However, the one skill that eluded me was her unique method of making biscuit dough directly in the flour bowl… firmly packed with flour. She never used a separate bowl; instead, she pressed the flour down densely into her flour bucket, and with her hands she formed a working indentation, added butter and milk and began to create biscuit dough right there on top of the packed flour. It was, without a doubt, a true art form… an art she learned from her mother… and like me, she had to learn it later in life also. Mama always laughed about her first experience in making dough… she said those biscuits could have won the war!
Cornbread was another oddly served food in the North to me… after discovering that they made cornbread muffins for dessert, but never actual cornbread to serve with dinner. The only bread served at my in-laws table was usually the bought loaf of Italian bread… my father-in-law loved it at every meal… breakfast, lunch and dinner… and if there was something to sop up… he enjoyed it even more. When Mama baked cornbread, she enjoyed a treat later of cornbread and buttermilk mixed together in a tall glass… which pretty much ended up as a mush. I also ate it, but never with buttermilk… I was only a milk and cornbread mush girl! It’s been many years since I’ve filled a glass full of cornbread and poured milk over… and not really sure I’d eat it today, but I do feel I need to bake a pan of cornbread and give it a try! Do let me know if you have tried it? A few more food name oddities were… we called all slice bread, “white bread”… not sure why other than it looked white, and Saltine crackers were only known as “soda crackers”… more head turns when they were asked for.
Mixing up foods was never permitted at Granddaddy’s table. If Mama decided not to eat what was served, then she went without food for the rest of the night. Being sent to bed without supper was not rare in that era. Nowadays, Mama chuckles about the many nights she was sent to bed hungry, yet she fondly recalls how her mother would secretly bring her something to eat later… and Granddaddy never found out—or did he? After all, it was rare for Granddaddy to miss a thing!
Today, I find myself vaguely recalling a memory of standing beside my Grandmother Bryan as she made sweet potato cobbler… Granddaddy’s favorite dessert. This memory resurfaced when I attempted to make it myself, but as my mother had never prepared it and Grandmamma was no longer with us, I sought assistance from family. Although many offered advice, a precise recipe was elusive, prompting me to devise my own through numerous attempts. Reflecting further, I distinctly remembered being in Mama Bryan’s kitchen, watching her arrange the sweet potato slices in the pan, yet struggling to recall the rest of the ingredients. Curiously, I always referred to my father’s mother as Mama Bryan, not Grandma or Grandmamma, as I did with my mother’s mother. My sweet potato cobbler recipe, along with my Heirloom Recipes story, which was published in Georgia Backroads magazine, is blogged over Here.
Now on to Mixed-up Languages…
Relocating from below the Mason-Dixon line, from Georgia to Connecticut, I swiftly realized a definitive sounding difference in the sounds of our languages… as they did in mine. Their initial greeting was, “Say something, I love hearing your accent.” I never knew I had an accent… as everyone back home spoke just like I did! Even today, I feel as I have no accent, yet there are a few words my husband points out that will always betray my origins.
They soon realized that the things I said weren’t always interpreted the way they understood them. When exiting a room, I would say “cut the light,” and they would quickly ask, “How do you cut the light off? Don’t you mean turn it off?” I was teased about this for many years, but I can confidently say that I now say, “turn the light off.” It only took me over 53 years to make that change!
When I first went grocery shopping, I grabbed a buggy… another unknown word to my new family… as here they were called carriage or cart. In my Southern home state of Georgia… my family there still calls them buggies!
With my husband’s guidance, I soon discovered that a service or gas station in Connecticut was the same as a ‘filling station’ in Georgia. Preparing to leave was what I called ‘Fixing to go’… which all simply meant… preparing to leave. When a destination wasn’t far away, it was often ‘Down the road a bit’ or ‘Round the corner’… which, to me, indicated that your destination wasn’t far away; often many would use my reference words and smile. Dinner was another term for supper, rolls meant ‘biscuits’, and subs here were what we called ‘sandwiches’. Their subs were typically stacked with more meat than one could fit in their mouth… quite a contrast to the sandwiches I was accustomed to, which usually had only one or two slices of meat. I recall the first sandwich I made for my husband’s work lunch; his colleagues found it amusing when they saw it contained just two slices of meat, but that had been the norm for me! I’m sure they teased him and quickly said how he needs to teach his new bride on the Italian art of sandwich making! I do add more meat to my sandwich today… but I pile his much higher!
The transition of Southern words to Yankee words were quite different, but in the end, they meant the same. No one ever had to ask where hubby’s new wife was… just listen for the one talking different/funny!
Of course, whenever I said “Ya’ll”… in referencing everyone within earshot… they’d look and laugh, and soon they learned to say it whenever I was around… and give me a smile. Many phrase/words such as “Reckon” or “Fixin To” never caught on with them long term… but they soon learned what I meant, and we all continued on with whatever I referenced we were doing.
One Southernism that I still struggle to pronounce correctly today is “pin” and “pen”; they sound identical to me. I know what I mean, but after saying “pin” or “pen,” I often have to point to the item I want, or I receive the opposite of what I requested. Another word I can’t say properly in the Northern dialect is “display.” Down South, I don’t think I have trouble communicating these words, but up North, it’s a different matter. (I can “thank” my husband for pointing this out to me!)
From another post, I compiled this list of Southern language encounters which totally confused my in-laws with…
Pitching a fit – Fixing to go – Madder than a wet hen – Y’all come in and sit a spell – He’s three sheets to the wind – Don’t ruffle her feathers – In a coon’s age – Don’t count your chickens till they’re hatched – Mind your beeswax – Plumb tired – Bit off more than you can chew – Caught with your pants down – Barking up the wrong tree – Well shut my mouth – Two peas in a pod – Higher than a Georgia pine – Shin-dig (social gathering with dancing) – I’m fixing to go – Just down the road a piece – By hook or crook – High Cotton – Won’t hit a lick at a snake – Don’t have a hissy fit – Will be there in a little bit – Juke joints (bars) – Running around like a chicken with his head cut off – If you aren’t skinny, then you’re referred to as having some meat on your bones – Give it a lick and a promise – Cut the lights off – Women referred to as a “heifer” (cow) in a nice way – go cut me a switch – Yes, Ma’am – I’ve got the heebie-jeebies – Arguing with a fence post – I declare – He won’t ‘mount to a hill of beans – If I take a notion – I reckon – Fiddlesticks – Down to the Paw Paw patch – Don’t have a conniption fit – Gimme some sugar – Well bless your heart – Pickn’ me a mess of corn – I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck – Honeychile’ – It’s over yonder – Tell your Mama I said hey – Eenie, Meenie, Miney Mo – Oly-Oly Oxen Free – Filling station (gas station) – Shore ‘Nuff – I’ll slap you silly – ‘Mights’ grow on chickens… and one of my Mama’s favorite was…. She must have been hit with the ugly stick!
Until Mama’s dying day… she still spoke her southern words… never did she pull on a pair of pants… it was always… I have to put my “britches” on. I don’t think I ever used that word or “youngins“… in reference to young kids. One I never liked was… come “give me some sugar“… which meant a kiss on the cheek. I do remember hearing my grandmothers or older family members say that me, but it was never a word I used.
Hope you’ve enjoyed my take on All Mixed Up… more can be read Here.
Thanks for Reading Along… Jeanne
To read more 2024: 52 Ancestor Stories 52 Weeks, click HERE.
Read more Family Stories over HERE…
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