Of this, I am certain
There are so many things that are open to debate in the world these days, and if social media and news sources are any indication, we are debating them all quite loudly and angrily and with great passion, whether the facts are behind us or not.
“Facts” are often a bit elusive as we are bombarded with a variety of perspectives presented as fact, as the platforms of the modern age far exceed the newsprint and soapboxes of the past.
Winston Churchill said, in his famous “Finest Hour” speech to Parliament in 1940 as the second World War was building, “Of this I am certain, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.”
His intent was to rally cooperation across party lines in defense of the country by showing that it was fruitless to continue to debate how each party had responded as the threat of Hitler arose. Time spent arguing about the actions of the past, pointing fingers over this detail or that, would only weaken them in the face of future threats.
I know I have said it many times here, but I completely agree with Churchill’s thoughts, and find myself constantly struggling with how divided we are today. The longer and deeper that fracturing goes on, the weaker we become as a country.
As I consider the bickering of our current political landscape, I find myself searching for any form of absolutes, the kind of things I can count on, the kind of things I can sink my teeth into. And so my thoughts turn to food, and the things of which I am absolutely certain, whether anyone else agrees with me or not.
Sugar does not belong in grits or cornbread, period.
When the Native Americans introduced corn to the savage settlers, there was no mention of adding sugar to the many recipes that were possible, because corn was sweet on its own and sugar was not yet on their radar.
The Natives to the north had maple syrup, perhaps that is why Northerners are more likely to sweeten such items. In the southern states, it was also hard to grow wheat, so for a very long time cornbread, made only with cornmeal and no sweetening, was the daily bread.
I have come to add a bit of flour to soften the texture of my cornbread, but cornmeal, buttermilk, eggs and butter are the key ingredients to this most traditional bread of the south, in my book.
Grits, meanwhile, are meant for pairing with savory accouterments such as cheese, or sausage or shrimp. Adding sugar is just wrong, and that is all there is to it. Tomato sandwiches are only made one way. Ask your grandma if you don’t believe me. If she disagrees then her kin probably ain’t from around here, bless her heart. Thick slices of homegrown tomatoes on white bread with Duke’s mayonnaise, salt and pepper. That’s it.
There are other names for sandwiches that have anything else added. If you add bacon and lettuce, it becomes a BLT. If you add lettuce or onion or peppers or cheese, it is called a vegetable sandwich. Yes, I know that cheese is not a vegetable, but most vegetable sandwiches have some cheese added to make them palatable, I assume. Banana pudding does not include Cool Whip. This one gets a little more cloudy, as there are numerous very delicious recipes for desserts with bananas that are topped with whipped cream. But, in our house, if it is called banana pudding, you are cooking that custard from scratch, layering it with vanilla wafers and banana slices, topping it with homemade meringue, and baking it off in the oven until the meringue starts to sweat and turns brown on the tips.
My dad loved banana pudding so much that very little was ever left over, but the only time you ate it cold was out of the fridge the next day. One of my proudest accomplishments as a mother has been making sure that my daughter learned how to make a proper banana pudding, even though I rarely make it.
It is one of those, “Do as I say, not as I do” moments, because I didn’t love it as much as my dad. But, everyone should know how to make it the right way, and she satisfied his cravings for it every time we visited over the last few years.
Biscuits are the bread you make with buttermilk.
If you are planning to make biscuits and find that you are out of buttermilk, you can fake it by adding a little lemon juice or vinegar to your sweet milk and allowing it to curdle a bit, but that tangy southern twang is absolutely required to pull off a proper biscuit. Otherwise, you might as well add some sugar and make cookies.
In case you might be concluding that I am too rigid to join the modern world, I will concede that there are some adaptations that have been made to southern cooking standards over the years that could be considered improvements.
For example, I have enjoyed many versions of peas or greens that were cooked without meat added. Flavor does not have to come in the form of highly salted and fatted pork in order to be delicious. Hence the fact that the rate of heart attacks has decreased over the years.
While ridiculously delicious when fried, it is possible to oven bake some pretty tasty and far healthier versions of battered chicken. You can also coat okra in oil and seasonings and roast it for an alternative to the fried version.
I’m not a barbarian. I can change for the benefit of healthier alternatives. After all, compromise is the key to finding common ground. But don’t expect me to budge on the things of which I am certain. We should maintain some standards, shouldn’t we?