Sorry for not being here yesterday, y'all, I've been feeling a bit under the weather the last few days, and decided to use my day off to crash. Much to my husband's chagrin, I didn't even take care of loading the dishwasher. I just took TFYO to school, and crashed out on the bed surrounded by cats. I feel better this morning, but I'm going got the doctor next week, just in case. You all are so sweet, worrying about me! It's funny how we all get used to seeing each other every day. I did pop in to read a couple of your blogs and comments very quickly yesterday. Maybe I have food poisoning, too, Jo!
Speaking of food, on to the post.
There is simply nothing so Southern as "sweet tea". For those of you not in the know, "sweet tea" is really iced tea, but...it's also not.
The first time I had sweet tea was when I moved to Alabama from Michigan. I had ordered an iced tea to go with my lunch, and the waitress dutifully brought me a glass filled to the brim with a lovely dark liquid. It looked good and strong, which is how I like it. I took a sip. Then I gagged.
It tasted like it had been sweetened with corn syrup, and then I realized it probably had.
I grew up drinking hot tea, made in a pot, either loose or in bags, served with sugar and milk. Canadians are moving more towards coffee now (can anyone say Tim Horton's?), but the older generation loves its tea. My great-grandmother made me sit down for tea at ten a.m. and four p.m. every day I spent with her as a child. And it was glorious. Little sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and marvelous pastries she'd made herself. Yum.
When I moved to the states, we drank iced tea, and it was okay. Usually it was pre-made Nestea, which is really just brown lemonade.
And then came the South, with it's wonderful and weird ways.
I love grits. And I adore greens with ham hock. I even have started to like banana pudding (nanner puddin' for those of you speaking southern today), if it's not too sweet. But I can't drink sweet tea.
And it's made me somewhat of an outcast.
I love going out to eat with my in-laws because the drink order always goes like this:
"Sweet tea." "I'll have a sweet tea." "Sweet tea, please." "One for me, too." "I'll have unsweet tea, please."
And that point, it gets deathly quiet, inevitably someone drops a piece of flatware, and the waiter or waitress stares at me, with pencil poised above pad as if I'd just asked for a slice of boiled puppy.
Then my father-in-law will rescue me with a quick "Oh, she's from up north." And then a sly grin crosses his face, "She's a foreigner."
The the waitress will usually bring me little packets of artificial sweetener, and look horrified when I tell her I don't need them. I drink my tea straight, just a slice of lemon. I know it sounds odd, but ever since that first taste of sweet tea eleven years ago, my taste buds shudder at the thought of putting sweetener in my tea. I find it more refreshing without it. And Luzianne tea really seems to be the official tea of the south. It does make very good iced tea, very clear, very strong. I just don't like sugar in it.
My aversion to sweet tea is really the only thing that marks me out down here now. More often than not, my speech is coloured by a soft southern accent, and I can cook with the best of them. I even have a recipe for sweet tea that I make when the in-laws come to visit. But when they're not here, by husband just has to deal with the pitcher of unsweet tea glaring at him from the fridge. I offer to make a sugar syrup to sweeten it for him, but he just sighs, and drinks it straight likes his foreigner wife. Her and her strange northern ways.
