Country cookin' and Soul Food (Dallas, Sherman: transplants, college, zoned)

[wade_word]

No matter what it's called, it still ends up in the same place. That place is my tummy. And it's still verrrrrry good!

[DisplacedTexan]

Coming originally from the western part of Texas, I'd never heard of boiled peanuts till I moved to the Southeast.

[case44]

Originally Posted by DisplacedTexan

Coming originally from the western part of Texas, I'd never heard of boiled peanuts till I moved to the Southeast.

That never occurred to me that you can boil them. For years, I thought they could only be for roasting or making peanut butter. It's a Southeast thing, all right. Even more incredible is that you can freeze them for future reuse, or that their texture would be soft.

[blueskies49]

Originally Posted by DisplacedTexan

Coming originally from the western part of Texas, I'd never heard of boiled peanuts till I moved to the Southeast.

Originally Posted by case44

That never occurred to me that you can boil them. For years, I thought they could only be for roasting or making peanut butter. It's a Southeast thing, all right. Even more incredible is that you can freeze them for future reuse, or that their texture would be soft.

It's also an East Texas thing. My husband remembers them growing up. I can buy the canned version of boiled peanuts at my local Kroger.

[MurphyPl1]

Originally Posted by TexasReb

Got a question for my fellow Texans here!

What do y'all think is, if any, difference in "soul food" and traditional Texas/Southern "country cookin'?

Let me preface here a bit...

On the larger U.S. forum someone a while back asked the question of how does one define "soul food."

A definite pattern emerged. Whites from the north and far west tended to associate it with African Americans, and the particulars being items such as fried chicken, greens, grits, black-eyed peas, fried okra, cornbread, watermelon, etc. etc.

People from the South (including Texas) -- both black AND white -- while acknowledging that the TERM "soul food" is more associated with the former, really didn't see all that much difference in what is called soul food in the north and what is also the foodstuff that most whites down here grew up eating. Which is, perhaps, why the term "soul food, is not so commonly used here...as there really ISN'T such a huge difference.

Does that make sense? And any thoughts/observations on the matter...?

I was at the Mary Kay convention in downtown Dallas and a black woman I was chatting with asked if there were any Soul Food restaurants nearby to the CC or the hotel. I had to confess that I was sure there were but wasn't sure where. But that was because I wasn't that sure what Soul Food really was (being a white Yankee by birth). So when I got back to work (in Dallas) I asked a friend of mine who happened to be black what Soul Food was. He described all that you did above at which point I exclaimed "oh it's Southern Food!" And we agreed that yes, it really was that. Although I guess whites don't have enough soul to put in their cooking to nudge it over the line.

[MurphyPl1]

Originally Posted by TexasReb

And the black man would, in turn, turn him inside out by absolutely getting the message across that he didnt, in fact, like fried chicken or watermelon.

And of course, the laugh track would launch off, and the whole didactic and patronizing thesis was to impart the lesson that blacks cannot be stereotyped, and only the most ignorant would do so.

FINE..YET, this confused most Southerners, black AND white! I remember thinking, what is the point here, and simply don't understand! We ALL down here love this stuff that is somehow being associated ONLY with black people by some Hollywood types who don't have a damn CLUE!

I posted on another forum about our local Farm to Market road needing more traffic lights and the TxDOT officials insistence that it should still be a highway to get to town. I mentioned that of the 50K cars traveling that road a day, the vast majority aren't farmers trying to get their watermelons to market. And would you believe people thought I was racist for bringing up watermelons. Not by black folks, but white folks! Heck, I LOVE watermelon and I LOVE it from those farmers selling on the side of the road. Other than some peaches near Hedley, I'm not sure I've bought anything but watermelon off the side of the road. (Good intentions but that watermelon distracts me).

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by MurphyPl1

And would you believe people thought I was racist for bringing up watermelons. Not by black folks, but white folks! Heck, I LOVE watermelon and I LOVE it from those farmers selling on the side of the road. Other than some peaches near Hedley, I'm not sure I've bought anything but watermelon off the side of the road. (Good intentions but that watermelon distracts me).

Yep, I sure believe it, Murphy!

And to back up what you say, I am just going to "copy and paste" something I wrote on the subject a while back, on another thread as well! LOL

***************

Back in the 60's, was when that expression "soul food" first gained some popularity in the American vernacular. With most of the media and TV concerns being in the NE and California, it was associated with blacks in popular (i.e. non-Southern) mindset. The thing was, it confused many of us Southern whites because WE had eaten this great crusine described as "soul" all our lives! LOL

Great story I once read which typlified this confusion. There was some huge plant up in Michigan (maybe they made cars) which employed so many folks they had a company cafeteria. There were all races/ethnic groups represented, including many blacks and whites originally from the South (particularly from Alabama, Tennessee and Texas). Anyway, because of this natural diversity, there were special "food days" set aside for the respective cultures. For instance, there would be a "Greek Day" or "Italian Day" featuring the specialized foods.

Ok. Well, a group of Southern whites went to the cafeteria managment and asked about having a "Southern Day", which would have all the foods listed and mentioned. It was agreed to do so and the day was posted on the company bulletin board as, it turned out, happening to fall on the MLK holiday! This was just pure happenstance, but what was read was that Southern folks from Alabama, Texas, Tennessee, etc wanted to have a menu that, on MLK Day, would include such things as fried chicken and watermelon!

Oh man! Many northerners got "offended" and thought this was an intended insult...since none of them had any experience with the South. Their whole whole biased way of thinking was that what they regarded as "soul food" was to be exclusively associated with a so-called "negative stereotype" of blacks, with the same mindset being that the Southern whites were making fun.

As it turned out, not surprisingly at all, it was a group of Southern blacks who smoothed things over. They explained that "hey, down where we come from, ALL of us homefolk, black AND white eat this food. There is nothing racist about it."

Homefolk. That says it all...

[love roses]

I love that!

[blueskies49]

Originally Posted by MurphyPl1

I posted on another forum about our local Farm to Market road needing more traffic lights and the TxDOT officials insistence that it should still be a highway to get to town. I mentioned that of the 50K cars traveling that road a day, the vast majority aren't farmers trying to get their watermelons to market. And would you believe people thought I was racist for bringing up watermelons. Not by black folks, but white folks! Heck, I LOVE watermelon and I LOVE it from those farmers selling on the side of the road. Other than some peaches near Hedley, I'm not sure I've bought anything but watermelon off the side of the road. (Good intentions but that watermelon distracts me).

Now I don't understand that. There's several counties and towns in the South and Texas (majority white) that have watermelon festivals.

[TexasHorseLady]

Yeah, I'm a bit confused about that one, myself. Where, exactly, were these folks posting from?