A Southern delicacy....

[Art Davis]

As an expatriate southerner, I just gotta' add my $0.02. You guys never even mentioned pink eye purple hull field peas. When I ask them here in Oregon about field peas, they give me a fishy-eyed look and point at those little round green things. Stew up a bunch of field peas, with a few pods of "okry" added toward the end, and sop up the juice with a few biscuits---and I'm in seventh heaven. Along with a side of speckled butterbeans. Fried okra is fine, but you gotta have that slimey stuff to get the real flavor.

On the subject of grits, my wife (who is a dyed-in-the-wool Detroit Yankee) was so surprised when we ordered breakfast in a little cafe on our first trip down to my home in Louisiana and they brought her grits along with her eggs. "But---I didn't order them," she complained. "Honey," I told her, "When you order eggs down south, you ARE ordering grits." Just thinking of grits and eggs makes my mouth water.

Why is good food always flavored with lots of calories and cholesterol?

As a kid, we had chittlins', hogs head cheese, and stewed squirrels along with their brains fried with scrambled eggs. Now I don't miss those things. But does anyone remember peanut patties? As a snack, they're great.

[Michael Cody]

Art, even here in Michigan I can buy purple hull field peas in the can anyway... My old hillbillie dad had me eating them & black eye peas since I was first on solid food. One of my favorites. Never cared much for chitlin's or hogs head, but I've ate many a plate of Tree Rat .. got so many of them when I was a boy, I quit using my old .410 and switched to .22 single shot for the sport. Odd thing though, never even put a dent in the population.

[Art Davis]

Man I am disappointed...No mention of black eyes peas with salt pork or mustard greens with salt pork( or in my case tasso-Cajun spicey salt pork).

One year to screw with my inlaws( Maryland-ers)...I Cajunized/Southernized Thanksgiving. Cajun Fried Trukey, Mustard greens with tasso; tomatoes(homegrown canned), corn and okra; and black eye peas, in addition to otehr normal things cranberries. First they looked at me and my wife(Recovering Marylander/Honorary Cajun***) with shock and disdain. They had to be wheeled from the table, then my father inlaw went buy a turkey fryer the next day....however he doesn eat okra. Figures he was from outside of Boston..a true Yankee..doesnt even drink coffee.


*** My wifes honorary Cajun status is due to the fact that she can out eat most people with boiled crawfish.
Also the fact that she cooks better Crawfish ettouffe than my dad or myself. Now any one that can out cook 2 Cajuns who know their ancestry back to the orginal Acadians has to be a Honorary Cajun. IF you were to add an x on the end of her last name..it would be Cajun. So who knows.

Rob,

How long since you had a Jax beer? Remember the commercials with Hank and his horse sitting on the bar stools? When the bartender refused to serve Jax to the horse and Hank apologized to the horse, the horse turns to Hank and says, "Oh, that's okay, Hank, I was driving anyway!"

I still cook up a good Cajun gumbo recipe that I acquired from a relative, Sue Vidrine of Mamou---and Creole red beans and rice, which (naturally) start off with a roux!

[Dennis Peacock]

Rob,
I still cook up a good Cajun gumbo recipe that I acquired from a relative, Sue Vidrine of Mamou---and Creole red beans and rice, which (naturally) start off with a roux!

OK Art.....that does it.....when do I show up for some-o-dat???!!!!!

[Don Baer]

I still cook up a good Cajun gumbo recipe that I acquired from a relative, Sue Vidrine of Mamou---and Creole red beans and rice, which (naturally) start off with a roux!

Red beens and rice with andoue (sp) sausage hmmmmmmmmm now that eat'n
I also like a big ole plate of crawfish etufee...