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[EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:

> When we get down close to where we live, it's amusing that we need 
> lexicons and glossaries to kow what each other are saying.

It is interesting to say the least.  There was always a difference
between north Georgia and south Georgia, which may seem odd to some, but
considering the terrain, climate, and population differences, it makes a
lot of sense.  The farms and food of the coastal plains are different
than the farms and foods of the Appalachians, and I'm sure that is the
same for other states like Arkansas, SC, NC, TN, AL etc where there is
an upstate and a plains area, all within the same state.
In a few weeks, I'm heading down to the low country of the GA/SC border
for a little vacation.  I'm really excited to see some of the old
plantations, especially the rice plantations that predate the
Revolutionary War.  The availability of fresh seafood in the diet really
changes the culture, I think.

> As in Bev's more southernly clime, here if you say "We're having 
> beans" it mean green breans, and that's what they are called.  The 
> term 'snap bean' is heard and used but it is as foreign to our ears 
> as calling them 'haricots".

If I hear someone say snap beans, I know they are not from GA..lol


> Dry shell beans are called "soup beans" and the most common type is 
> what we call "October beans" but are called dove beans and cranberry 
> beans elsewhere.  It's a very large bean that looks like a double 
> sized pinto but it is a bush bean and very easy to grow.

Like I said before, I never knew of soup beans before this list.  We
were a gardening family, but not a big soup eating family...vegetable
soup was about the extent of it, and the prime ingredient in that was
surplus okra, not soup beans, the only beans in veggie soup were green
beans.  Over the span of my lifetime, the world is more interconnected,
more northerners moved south, more southerners left the farms for the
cities-it makes for more of a melting pot and less of cultural identity.
 Now, we have different kinds of soups, not just the garden vegetable
mix we once had.<g>  I think poor Southerners ate stuff like grits and
cracklins and cornbread and field peas and greens-high carbs for
laboring in the sun, while poor Northerners ate a lot of soup, less
meat,  more beans, warms your insides when you are shoveling snow.
That's my theory and I'm sticking with it<g>
James' mountain territory is an oddity, I think,,,it is colder than most
of the South, but Southern culture is not diminished by a little snow in
winter<g>.  It does however, give James those humongo soup beans that
sound really good to me.
I have seen what was called cranberry beans, but they were small, like
Colorado red beans, not larger than a pinto bean.  Are they anything
like pink beans?  I have some of those-they are larger than my pintos,
but not double the size.



> Here if you just say "bread" it means cornbread.  The bleached white 
> wheat bread in the stores is "light bread".  A comment on something's
>  impermanence is "That won't last until the bread gets done" refers
> to the very short time it takes to make cornbread.

Here, white bread is bread or white bread and corn bread is cornbread.
Southern cornbread is sweet, Yankee cornbread has no sugar.  I prefer
Yankee cornbread<g>.


> Lots and lots of those things.

Yeah, have you noticed that 'milk' is fast becoming 2% or less butterfat
milk and if you want whole milk you have to say 'whole milk'?



> By the bye, in referring to green beans as 'haricots', is anyone here
>  a fan of Zydeco music?

When I was in New Orleans last, I listened to a zydeco band for a 2
hours concert on a riverboat.  It would not have been my choice for
music, but after a few hours, I found myself in a better, more festive
mood, so I can definitely see how it would be popular among the poor and
downtrodden...it says PARTY...at least to me.  I associate the music
with typical Cajun fare, red beans and rice, jambalaya and the like.

Oh and James, I personally think that Mississippi, Alabama, and
Louisiana have the catfish market covered, although I must say I ate
plenty of it growing up in Georgia.  It did not come off a catfish farm
or out of a store either, it came off a trotline or my fishing pole.
Poor folks food....
That links to another memory...Country singer Bill Anderson(I'm not a
fan) used to have a Southern style restaurant chain called Po'Folks
until Cracker Barrel sent them packing.  PoFolks had the best fried
chicken livers on the planet(another Southern, poor people food
favorite)  They also had legendary sweet tea.  I miss that restaurant.
James, since I know you were in the Atlanta area in the late 70's and
80's, you may recall that there was a Po'Folks on Buford Highway...

--
"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public
debt  should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered
and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed
lest Rome become bankrupt.  People must again learn to work, instead of
living on public assistance."

--Cicero, 55 BC
http://erthnsky.blogspot.com/