Thursday, January 1, 2009

17 Plates

"Dijja eat?"
That's the most common form of "Hello" I hear here in the South.
Since being here, I've eaten;
Smothered (smoked, grilled, baked) 'coon (raccoon) - It may be the worst tasting meat(?) ever. The people were just offering me some of their dinner - or is it supper - and I didn't wish to be rude. It takes a loaf of bread and a bottle of Tabasco just to get one piece down.
Boudin - Basically, rice in a condom.
Frog Legs - Not terrible. Kind of tastes like chicken.
Alligator Tail - Kind of tastes like frog legs.
Hog Head Cheese - I almost threw-up just thinking about it. Seeing a big pig head in some one's sink isn't really appetizing.
Chitterlings - My parents had jobs - we always had meat. Never the scraps.
Black Bird Gumbo - No not crows - but how would I know?
Fish Head Gumbo - ?
Bologna Gumbo - Huh?
Gumbo Gumbo - People put anything in a pot of roux and call it a gumbo. I just bless my food and say 'thank you" and hope for the best.
Cray Fish (Craw fish, Craw dads) - It's not bad. Some people suck the juice from the heads.
But I've been offered squirrel, neutra-rat and opossum.
Some things were even beyond my faith in the blessing of food.

But every holiday, I get several plates of food delivered to my house from those of whom I've helped-out over the past year.
This Christmas I received 17 platters of food from different families. I have to put names on the plates so that I can return the right plate to the right person.
Holiday Spode, Fiesta Ware, Noritake, Lenox, Wedgwood and so on. My kitchen looks like a sample sale for dinner ware.

When someone asks what I had for dinner on Christmas or New Years (The custom here is to eat black eye peas and cabbage - for luck and prosperity in the coming year) - I have to answer "Everything".

5 comments:

RunningMom said...

I thought the BBQ tofu was bad till I read the rest of your list. I would have happily ate the BBQ tofu over EVERYTHING ELSE.

OMG. My stomach is turning at the thought.

"Rice in a condom"

HELL NO!

Other than real gumbo, there isn't anything else I would have been able to stomach. No matter the amount of blessings.

Did you get some packages of Malox, Tums, Ammodium AD and TP delivered as well?

You poor thing. lol

You are so much better than me. I couldn't.

Anonymous said...

Nothing like Neutra-Rat! Man I saw a documentary on that on Discovery or something and how they are shooting them in the bayou as part of the New Orleans pest control. Sometimes I'm glad I wasn't born down south because we don't have that tradition of eating ish like that. I am probably more partial to West Coast Mexicans and their food. Don't get our Mexicans mixed with that tex-mex crap they aren't the same. 17 platters is a lot and I think you should feel happy that many people remembered you. You must be doing a good job. Next year lets get to 50 platters!

uglyblackjohn said...

@Running Mom - Nah...It's really a rice dressing in a sausage skin. It's okay but not what I had expected.
But I understand that often these things are the best they have to offer.

@Freeman - I'm from Riverside so I know Mexican food. Also my mom is half Mexican (and half Native American). Tex-Mex sucks.
But we used to go down to T.J. for those bacon wrapped hot dogs (I HOPE they weren't real dog meat).
But yeah... I know that some people are giving me the best they have.
And that is a blessing.

RiPPa said...

Where are you in the south?

Lemme know so I can stay away.

LOL

J/K

I've only been down here for 3yrs now. Thankfully, my wife and her family are from Detroit. Yup, they don't eat that weird stuff except for chitlins. Of course I don't.

Rice in a condom?

Never heard of that one, but I'll pass...

Shelia said...

UBJ, I've heard of a lot of these dishes, haven't walked near them though. Although, my grandmother used to make hog head cheese. She'd go by the butcher and pick up a hog head and scrap the meat and skin off of it and mix this very ungodly concoction that everybody except me, my brother and sister would eat.

I'm getting ill thinking about it.