4.03.2009

The closet epicurean

I like food.

I don’t want to turn on my TV or come online in the morning and learn what’s going to kill me.

I don’t want to hear that favorites like eggs and coffee are bad for me only to be told later they are healthy.

I don’t want to hear about salmonella, E. coli, trichinosis, mad cows or mercury.

I don’t want to know the effects of red wine on my heart. I don’t like the taste of red wines.

I don’t want to know how many calories are in a large combination pizza.

I can do without reports about fppd-processing plants filled with roach and rodent droppings.

I don’t want to see a morning show chef prepare a recipe which calls for 47 ingredients unavailable west of Bangkok, Thailand.

I don’t want to know if I am meeting half my fiber needs before lunchtime.

Lobster and popcorn are useless to me without the appropriate melted butters.

I like salad with my salad dressing.

The only way to eat chicken or pork chops is fried.

I turn 67 this month, and a lifelong intake of Snickers candy bars has not “rotted” my teeth.

Like Jane Fonda, I’ve given up on returning to my Barbarella body.

My mother was the world’s best cook, and I still yearn for my favorite meal of fried salt pork, boiled new potatoes, wilted salad and cornbread. (Don’t know what wilted salad is? Fill a large salad bown with lettuce, chopped green onions – tops and greens – and sliced boiled eggs, then pour hot bacon drippins over mix and stir.)

For The Comments Zone:

What foods do you refuse to give up?

13 comments:

Good Southern Man said...

LOL... I have never tried the wilted salad BUT a food that I refuse to give up is a pear salad. Take a leaf of lettuce, put a canned pear half on it, put a dollop of mayonnaise in the middle and top with grated cheddar cheese. I actually make these at home when no one else is around. LOL. What a fun post.

Debra said...

I refuse to give up FRIED CHICKEN.
I love lobster and royal reds, but I can give Lobster up because it is too darn expensive now. So I settle for royal reds- alittle like mini lobsters(haha). I sure hope Fried chicken never gets unreasonable in price.
Food-YUM, I am like my daddy-I love to eat. I remember Grandmama Turner's fried salt pork and wilted salad. Delicious! I put salt pork in black eyed peas and cabbage not long ago. And as I was cooking, I fried a thin slice of salt pork and it was so good.
Food-it is WONDERFUL!!!!!!
Have a great weekend.
Love, Deb

Anonymous said...

Love this post! One of my favorites is similar to the wilted salad but instead of lettuce, we used fresh mustard greens. Soooo good! Also boiled peanuts! And I still make cornbread several times a week.
Love, Faye

B.J. said...

Great minds, GSM. Before I came online I had the pears with mayo and shredded cheddar cheese for my lunch. You got that dish from my mother’s table, I am certain of it! Or, I might have served it when you spent the week with me. Too, too good! (I put the large Del Monte can in the fridge and let the pears chill before making the salad. Better. And, the mayo HAS TO BE Blue Plate, made in New Orleans.) BJ

airth10 said...

"Closet epicurean". Seems like you are out of the closet now, BJ.

B.J. said...

LOL, Airth! When you left England for Canada did you bring along your hot tea tradition? Do you know why the English love their tea? During the cholera outbreak in the mid-1800s, it was discovered that drinking lots of water was the cure, and drinking tea with tannic acid was even better. That’s when the English made it a tradition. Don’t you jjust love trivia! How ‘bout it, do you love any forbidden foods or fruits of the forest? BJ

airth10 said...

I do drink a lot of tea during the day. In the evening I like that 'forbidden' fruit known as scotch.

Infidel753 said...

My parents immigrated from Britain and I picked up the tea-drinking habit. I'm drinking some right now, in fact. Nice to know I'll be safe if there's a sudden cholera outbreak here in Portland.

Tiny said...

Tiny hasn't given up any foods. She still likes her seafood fried, fried green tomatoes, chicken, eggs,bacon, grits and ho cakes. She also loves BLTs.

Mama said when we were growing up we didn't know anything about cholesterol, that if we had we'd probably fried it and ate it.

Tiny said, "I thought we did and called it prok rinds!" Had to render that lard.

We had the wilted salads also with bits of crisp bacon left in the hot grease. Getting hungry now and gonna warm up a bowl of Cajun 15 bean soup and Mexican corn bread. And there's raw carrots, celery, broccli and cherry tomatoes. Yum!

Tiny is like her Mama and maternal grandmother, "At least I won't die hungry!" Mama was near 95 when she died and never took perscribed medicine on a long term basis until she had a stroke five years before her death. Good ole country living and home remedies.

Ta-ta for now. It's supper time!

B.J. said...

Tiny: You might be on to something. My daddy’s mother lived to be 104 and was pictured in the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., as the head of six living generations – a rarity! I think the hard work women bore when our mothers and grandmothers were young is the key to longevity. Grandmother Turner had 13 children. Imagine that without modern-day conveniences! And, she never had an extra ounce of fat on her body although she ate all this southern cooking we are talking about.

Every meal my mother would cook two meats and a whole assortment of veggies. I’ve never cooked that much for one meal. I once asked her if she cooked so much because of experiencing The Great Depression, and she said when she was growing up, they always cooked that much every day, because you never knew when relatives would come up on a wagon for a visit. (No telephone to call ahead in those days.)

She also said they never went hungry during the Depression, because they had all the meat, vegetables, eggs and milk they wanted, and only had to buy flour, sugar and cornmeal.

I’m sure we are boring the younger folks, LOL.

BJ

bja said...

Shut up! You are all making me so hungry and homesick! Could use that good southern man in NE where I got laughed at for my pear with mayo! Just fried up a hunk of bacon this morning to be selfishly doled out whenever I want it!

Frodo, betcha can't eat one said...

Alright all of you wusses and you Limeys come on back, nobody outdoes the Scots--fried Mars Bars, served with catsup (or ketchup if your dialect demands).
And you wonder why William Wallace died of a Braveheart attack?

B.J. said...

OK, Frodo, Mars bars with catsup? You know I’m a braveheart when it comes to trying new foods. I’ve eaten fried alligator with black bean dip. I love fried frog legs. I could eat three dozen oysters on the half shell right now! Two things I cannot eat are chitterlings and cantaloupes. I did sling chitterlings at a hog killing before and that was real fun. :-( BJ