<p>I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Yankee, and I eat tomato sandwiches as described all summer–or at least, as soon as I can get a ripe tomato. It’s not a southern thing in my experience. One difference is that since I make my own bread most of the time I include some chopped fresh basil in the bread, which makes it even better.</p>
<p>BTW, in one of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s earlier novels–The Beautiful and the Damned, if memory serves–the protagonist’s wife ate tomato sandwiches for lunch at the Plaza or some such place in NYC every day.</p>
<p>Chicken-fried steak is a steak (preferably something like round steak) pounded to about 1/4 inch, then dipped (preferably) in beaten egg and seasoned flour and pan fried until deliciously crispy. Then you make a nice milk gravy in the pan and serve it with (preferably) a baked potato and greens. Or you can go to Shoney’s. :)</p>
<p>This thread is having a bad effect on me. Today I made some sweet tea–I like it half and half with lemonade. Tomorrow I might be compelled to make chicken-fried steak. I haven’t had it in ages.</p>
<p>of course Packmom and others-i wasn’t trying to nitpick/talking specifically about what you said. what i’m talking about is when you are specifically addressing one person and one person only-like those lame southern jokes you hear that were made by someone who has clearly never been in the south?</p>
<p>Anyone remember this song by the Blue Dogs (with the repeating chorus: “theres only two things money cant buy. Thats true love and home grown tomatoes”)
<p>Packmom, just one more tiny thing (and only because this is a HUGE pet peeve of mine). The contraction y’all is made of “you” + “all”. The apostrophe replaces the “ou”, so it’s written y’all, never as ya’ll. </p>
<p>Sorry, I know… I’m nit picking… but it ruins this delightful thread for me :-). I felt so out-of-place in the thread where someone was defending spending $350 for her daughter’s prom shoes (craziness to me), but this one is FUN!</p>
<p>^^^yes, AllThis, Montegut already pointed out my disgraceful typos on the previous page. My family came to NC in 1796, I can assure that I know what y’all stands for and will not make that woeful mistake in the future,lol.</p>
<p>Also,sorry that I thought tomato sandwiches were a mostly southern cuisine. My neighbor acted as if she had never heard of such. I confess that I have never been “up north” so please excuse my assumption.</p>
<p>Consolation- that’s funny. I, too, was impacted by this thread. I got into a little trouble on my run this morning and dehydrated. Stopped at Sonic for a 44 ounce iced tea. Normally I get unsweetened with lemon. Today I asked for half sweet, half unsweetened! A nod to CC.</p>
<p>About y’all…I knew a man from NC (ok he was a hillbilly and proud of it-of course he was a hillbilly with a PhD…) who insisted that saying “y’all” proves that you are from the city. Everyone knows you’re supposed to say “y’uns”. ;)</p>
<p>^^^ Up north we used to say “you guys”. I seem to recall some folks said “youze guys” but it might have been only in West Side Story or Fonzi on Happy Days</p>
<p>There was a recipe in this month’s issue of Health Magazine for “healthy” chicken fried steak. Egg whites instead of eggs, yada yada. Made me laugh.
As an NEasterner, I have to say this dish has no appeal to me at all. An acquired taste I think.
And I like my tea unsweetened…at the most a splash of lemonade.
Love tomato sandwiches though. The best summer tomatoes are from Jersey…for those who don’t have them in the garden of course.</p>
<p>My son, from the south, had never had country fried steak until going to Harvard. It appears to be served often there. He does miss grits with his breakfast - the only time it was served this year was during a “Parents - Send Your Kid’s Favorite Recipes” week. All his friends from the north loved them and requested that they add them to the menu!</p>
<p>As for iced tea, I still remember a trip to Bangor, Maine - where I was told they don’t serve iced tea until Memorial Day and not after Labor Day. The waitress did offer to bring me a cup of tea and a glass of ice - not quite the same! I ordered a Coke!</p>
<p>What I love is when our neighbors have gardens and are producing so many tomatoes that they can’t eat them all so they’ll leave us random bags of fresh tomatoes at our back door!</p>
<p>I’m born and raised in the South but never have found boiled peanuts appealing either. My grandparents were from rural Mississippi and my grandfather used to love boiled peanuts and pickled pigs feet! Ugh…I couldn’t even look at the jar! My grandmother could bake the best homemade pies though! Sweet potato, lemon meringue, chocolate meringue, mmmm! She was the master of sweet tea; although I don’t drink it anymore, just the mention of it makes me think of long sunday lunches at her house as a kid. Good memories.</p>
<p>Another Southern treat is fresh peaches from Ruston, Louisiana! Big as grapefruits, you could make a meal off of one and so sweet! My grandmother always had those too.</p>
<p>Oh, so sorry about the y’all comment. Did not mean to criticize. Just something I correct in my work all the time. I have never said anything to my typists, for fear of hurting their feelings, and I just keep on correcting the mistake. So please, anyone who took offense, I was not meaning to criticize, just giving the origin of the word.</p>
<p>Asked my Biloxi born husband if he had ever had sweet tea, and he had not as well. He said that he saw it on the shelves at the grocery, though, and wonder if that’s what y’all are talking about.</p>
<p>Watching the Food Network over the weekend, and saw Big Daddy make Salmon Patties, which is a recipe I got from my mother-in-law. It was very similar to hers. </p>
<p>And for grits, my ornithology professor at UMiami would get us up for 4 am to head out on our weekly Saturday field trips so he could stop for grits on the way before we went birdwatching in the swamps all over southern and central Florida.</p>
<p>My job is in a building that also houses a Child Dev. Center (fulltime daycare for working parents). There is a cook who prepares the meals for the children. She cooks grits for breakfast at least once a week…gotta start those little ones off right.<br>
She always makes extra so the rest of us can have some too,lol</p>
<p>My DH loves boiled peanuts. I can’t stand them. Love blister fried peanuts.
We grew up eating salmon cakes except my mother shaped them into three cornered blobs and called them salmon croquettes…fancy,lol.</p>
<p>y’all = you all
ya’ll = ya all
Harper Lee spelled it “yawl”</p>
<p>I believe these are all just alternate spellings of the same word. It just depends on how you grew up spelling it. I never once thought to correct someone for spelling ya’ll “y’all”. It just wasn’t that important. :)</p>
<p>Another yummy southern dish - okra and tomatoes. My kids will eat the whole pot’s worth if I let them.</p>
<p>^^^
mafool - that’s because you haven’t had okra cooked just right. I HATE (let me emphasize HATE) the horribly battered fried okra you can buy frozen in stores or get in restaurants. </p>
<p>The ONLY way to fry okra is to use a cornmeal base. I prefer to use something like Zatarain’s fish fry cornmeal mix since the spices are good, but plain old cornmeal (with some S&P) is good too. No egg is needed because the sliced okra is “sticky” enough.</p>
<p>Another good use of okra (and quite good for dieters) is Okra Jambalaya. I use saute onions, peppers, and garlic in olive oil. Then I add them to a pot with canned (or chopped fresh) tomatoes, okra, and various Italian type spices. Let it simmer on low for 2-3 hours and serve over (what else…) rice. You can also add bacon or ham to it for some extra (but not quite so dietetic flavor.</p>
<p>It is the slime that turns me off! (Plus, the slices look like something from Mars, but I eat other strange looking food so I sould get past that) Is battered and fried okra slimey?</p>
<p>I had fried okra as part of a dish in a well-regarded restaurant Saturday night, as it happens. It was billed on the menu as “crispy okra”. It was not crispy in the least! But it wasn’t slimey or disgusting, either. Sort of a draw – OK, not great – but that FAR exceeded my expectations for okra.</p>
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