0 comment Saturday, September 20, 2014 | admin
Where our traditions and our culture are concerned, it's all important. It all matters, even the simplest of things.
This article informs us that according to an 'international survey of travellers', the 'full English' breakfast is the world's top breakfast, with American breakfasts in second place.
See the photo if you are not familiar with the English 'fry-up.'
It's not too dissimilar to the breakfasts I remember, back in my childhood in Texas, minus, of course, the baked beans and black pudding.
The breakfasts on the other side of the Atlantic differ too in that the sausages and bacon are not the same. The English bacon is more similar to Canadian bacon, or 'back bacon', and their sausages are not much like those we eat in this country. I prefer the American ones, but I suppose we all prefer what we've grown up with.
The sliced tomatoes are usually included in our breakfasts along with the fried eggs, bacon, and sausage. I don't think this is generally true for Yankee-style breakfasts, but I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong.
Breakfasts in the South, too, often include distinctive foods like grits, a food item which has never caught on up North. Also, breakfast in the South may include toast but more traditionally would include biscuits, preferably made from scratch, not those counterfeits which you buy in a can from the dairy case at the grocery store. Those are all right in their way, but they can't compare to the homemade ones. The biscuits preferably should be eaten with molasses and butter, at least in my opinion.
This topic reminded me of a post which Sarah Maid of Albion posted a while back. The post was titled 'Losing things of value.' She discussed English food traditions like soft-boiled eggs with 'soldiers', or dip fingers, then discussed the importance of what may seem on the surface to be small things, trivial traditions. Yet food is something which is closely tied to all our memories, and which often stirs up recollections of happy times (or not-so-happy times). Aromas and tastes have the power to conjure up very vivid memories.
''Egg and soldiers, buttered scones, Yorkshire pudding, crumble, custard roast beef or muffins. The simple pleasure of such simple treats, enjoyed before us by generations of English men and women is something we can share with those who went before us, even if was are no longer permitted to share their certainty of their role within the world or their pride in what we are as a people.''
A few years ago on this blog I think we touched on the idea of how multiculturalism has even been imposed on our culinary habits and preferences. If I recall correctly, the discussion was started by another blogger (are you out there, JS?) and continued briefly on this blog. I strongly feel that we are being colonized in matters of food as well as in the more obvious ways. A few years ago I used to watch the Food Network a good bit, and I began to notice that they were featuring more 'diversity' in the program hosts and recipes. In our local grocery stores, too, Mexican foods (imported from Mexico, not Americanized 'Mexican' food) take up more and more shelf space, until whole aisles are now given over to Mexican foods and beverages. My town has quite a few people with roots in a Northern European country, but the foods of that country which used to be available in our stores is now banished to make way for Mexican foods. How symbolic.
Increasingly our tastes run to spicy foods containing ingredients like Jalapenos, chipotle peppers, salsa, and so on. It's trendy. Eating plain old American food is dull and boring, so the popular idea seems to have it.
Even alcoholic drinks show the Mexican influence.
Sarah in her piece discusses how the English have been taught to devalue their own foods and culinary traditions in favor of more exotic stuff, just as we Americans have been led to do. She mentions music also as being subject to the same process of devaluation and denigration. We can say this about our own music, too, though it has been a gradual process here. For some years, it seems as though American music has been dominated by black styles, going back at least to the turn of the century if not to the mid-19th century with 'minstrel' shows.
Since then almost all youth-oriented music has been black music, although I am not one of those who believe that rock 'n roll is primarily a black style of music.
Now rap and related forms of 'music' seem to prevail among the very young, at the expense of our rightful, European-derived musical traditions. And of course our tastes have been debased as a part of this process.
So far, Mexican music has not made many inroads into our culture, although the music moguls keep pushing Latino 'entertainers' who do a more 'urban' style of music, rather than the noises that your Mexican neighbors blast from their car stereos.
But as Sarah points out, this is all part of a larger agenda to demolish what is left of our real Western traditions and cultures.
''The point is to so devalue our culture in our eyes that we will not care what happens to it. After all, a man will only fight to defend that which he loves whilst he still loves it, if he ceases to love it why would he fight for it? Of course, if he is never taught what he has he will not miss it when its taken from him, and if he's never seen the stars he will never know their beauty and will not care if they cease to be.
[...] That may sound a tiny issue, but there are a million different experiences, feelings thoughts and objects which come together to create a national identity, we can lose them one by one until we lose them all.''
It all matters, even these trivial things such as what we eat for breakfast. The warm memories of my childhood are bound up with the smell of breakfast cooking, the sights, the smells, the feeling, of sitting in my grandmother's kitchen enjoying her home-cooked foods, the same foods generations of our ancestors enjoyed.
The music we listened to, or sang and played during long summer evenings, it all evokes very vivid memories. It ties all the generations together, the absent ones as well as those still present, here in this troubled time, this 'present darkness.'
It's all important. All of it. And if we don't value it, if we are content to give it all away without a whimper, then it will be a thing of the past very soon, along with the freedoms we've also ceased to value as we should.
This article informs us that according to an 'international survey of travellers', the 'full English' breakfast is the world's top breakfast, with American breakfasts in second place.
See the photo if you are not familiar with the English 'fry-up.'
It's not too dissimilar to the breakfasts I remember, back in my childhood in Texas, minus, of course, the baked beans and black pudding.
The breakfasts on the other side of the Atlantic differ too in that the sausages and bacon are not the same. The English bacon is more similar to Canadian bacon, or 'back bacon', and their sausages are not much like those we eat in this country. I prefer the American ones, but I suppose we all prefer what we've grown up with.
The sliced tomatoes are usually included in our breakfasts along with the fried eggs, bacon, and sausage. I don't think this is generally true for Yankee-style breakfasts, but I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong.
Breakfasts in the South, too, often include distinctive foods like grits, a food item which has never caught on up North. Also, breakfast in the South may include toast but more traditionally would include biscuits, preferably made from scratch, not those counterfeits which you buy in a can from the dairy case at the grocery store. Those are all right in their way, but they can't compare to the homemade ones. The biscuits preferably should be eaten with molasses and butter, at least in my opinion.
This topic reminded me of a post which Sarah Maid of Albion posted a while back. The post was titled 'Losing things of value.' She discussed English food traditions like soft-boiled eggs with 'soldiers', or dip fingers, then discussed the importance of what may seem on the surface to be small things, trivial traditions. Yet food is something which is closely tied to all our memories, and which often stirs up recollections of happy times (or not-so-happy times). Aromas and tastes have the power to conjure up very vivid memories.
''Egg and soldiers, buttered scones, Yorkshire pudding, crumble, custard roast beef or muffins. The simple pleasure of such simple treats, enjoyed before us by generations of English men and women is something we can share with those who went before us, even if was are no longer permitted to share their certainty of their role within the world or their pride in what we are as a people.''
A few years ago on this blog I think we touched on the idea of how multiculturalism has even been imposed on our culinary habits and preferences. If I recall correctly, the discussion was started by another blogger (are you out there, JS?) and continued briefly on this blog. I strongly feel that we are being colonized in matters of food as well as in the more obvious ways. A few years ago I used to watch the Food Network a good bit, and I began to notice that they were featuring more 'diversity' in the program hosts and recipes. In our local grocery stores, too, Mexican foods (imported from Mexico, not Americanized 'Mexican' food) take up more and more shelf space, until whole aisles are now given over to Mexican foods and beverages. My town has quite a few people with roots in a Northern European country, but the foods of that country which used to be available in our stores is now banished to make way for Mexican foods. How symbolic.
Increasingly our tastes run to spicy foods containing ingredients like Jalapenos, chipotle peppers, salsa, and so on. It's trendy. Eating plain old American food is dull and boring, so the popular idea seems to have it.
Even alcoholic drinks show the Mexican influence.
Sarah in her piece discusses how the English have been taught to devalue their own foods and culinary traditions in favor of more exotic stuff, just as we Americans have been led to do. She mentions music also as being subject to the same process of devaluation and denigration. We can say this about our own music, too, though it has been a gradual process here. For some years, it seems as though American music has been dominated by black styles, going back at least to the turn of the century if not to the mid-19th century with 'minstrel' shows.
Since then almost all youth-oriented music has been black music, although I am not one of those who believe that rock 'n roll is primarily a black style of music.
Now rap and related forms of 'music' seem to prevail among the very young, at the expense of our rightful, European-derived musical traditions. And of course our tastes have been debased as a part of this process.
So far, Mexican music has not made many inroads into our culture, although the music moguls keep pushing Latino 'entertainers' who do a more 'urban' style of music, rather than the noises that your Mexican neighbors blast from their car stereos.
But as Sarah points out, this is all part of a larger agenda to demolish what is left of our real Western traditions and cultures.
''The point is to so devalue our culture in our eyes that we will not care what happens to it. After all, a man will only fight to defend that which he loves whilst he still loves it, if he ceases to love it why would he fight for it? Of course, if he is never taught what he has he will not miss it when its taken from him, and if he's never seen the stars he will never know their beauty and will not care if they cease to be.
[...] That may sound a tiny issue, but there are a million different experiences, feelings thoughts and objects which come together to create a national identity, we can lose them one by one until we lose them all.''
It all matters, even these trivial things such as what we eat for breakfast. The warm memories of my childhood are bound up with the smell of breakfast cooking, the sights, the smells, the feeling, of sitting in my grandmother's kitchen enjoying her home-cooked foods, the same foods generations of our ancestors enjoyed.
The music we listened to, or sang and played during long summer evenings, it all evokes very vivid memories. It ties all the generations together, the absent ones as well as those still present, here in this troubled time, this 'present darkness.'
It's all important. All of it. And if we don't value it, if we are content to give it all away without a whimper, then it will be a thing of the past very soon, along with the freedoms we've also ceased to value as we should.
Labels: American Traditions, Culinary Traditions, Multiculturalism, Old America, Southron Foods, Vanishing America
0 comment Wednesday, July 9, 2014 | admin
At this time of year I usually devote some space to Christmas-related posts, and I offer you this piece, which is apparently no longer on the Web anywhere. It is credited to J.O. Bledsoe of Georgia.
Christmas in the Early South
Many in the tidewater region of the Southern colonies enjoyed enough wealth and leisure to celebrate the ancient holiday of Christmas in grandest fashion. Largely English, French, and German, often aristocratic, and usually unencumbered by the stern moral earnestness that afflicted their Puritan cousins in the North, these first Southerners thoroughly enjoyed Christmas when they could.
For centuries their European ancestors had observed the 14-day-long season of Christmas-tide, which began on Christmas eve and continued through January 6th, the "Twelfth Day" after Christmas called Epiphany. The Christmas spirit sailed across the Atlantic with them and even during the harsh early years, they often managed to celebrate the Yuletide in the New World with traditional English merrymaking: visiting, music, fireworks, cannon shooting, bonfires, feasting, parties, hunts, games, dances and weddings all before an enormous glowing and blazing Yule log. It had been carefully selected and lighting it on Christmas eve signaled the beginning of holiday merriment. "Carefully selected" in this case meant that servants found the largest, most water-soaked log available since tradition held that the merry season of leisure would last as long as the Yule log burned. Another tradition was to save a small portion to kindle next year's Christmas log.
In New England, the Puritan fathers looked with grim disdain on Christmas. To them, this holiday was a notorious occasion for celebrations in Catholic Europe, and they thus strictly forbade its observance. Work continued on this day unless it fell on Sunday. "Anybody," so ran the enactment by the General Court of Massachusetts, "who is found observing by abstinence from labor, feasting, or any other way, any such day as Christmas day, shall pay for every such offence five shillings." Elders also found it necessary to "Forbid all traffic in plum puddings and the like." For some reason the plum pudding was viewed as a symbol of the whole evil affair. The settlers of the middle colonies held somewhat less dreary views and were not so much bothered by feelings of religious guilt. Many of them enjoyed Christmas with the merriment of their "old country" traditions.
The wealth of our Christmas customs, however, came from the Southern colonies. As the years went by and colonists there increased in wealth, so did their celebrations increase in elaborateness. By the last half of the 18th century Christmas time had become the social as well as religious season for Southerners. Many Southern settlers during early colonial days considered Christmas primarily a religious festival; and although the religious meaning of the season was never neglected the observances leading up to "Twelfth Night" or Epiphany, which commemorates the visit of the Three Wise Men to the Christ Child, were often the most popular and written-about times of the season, even outshining Christmas Day toward the end of that period all the traditional English merrymaking customs and revelry were widely and heartily observed.
The Christmas tree was soon borrowed from German Moravian and Lutheran colonists; but from the beginning Southerners gathered evergreens such as holly, smilax, pine, cedar, laurels, magnolia, and mistletoe to "deck the halls." Wreaths were woven and mantelpieces and pictures festooned. Tidewater Christmases were rarely white, but always green. Juniper or incense might have been burned to protect the household from harm. Another aroma of the season came from the kitchen where Christmas cakes and cookies were baked from long-standing "recipes" passed down from mother to daughter. Gifts were exchanged and carols sung; and specially made huge "Christmas candles" illuminated the whole house.
At the center of all the celebrating was "Father Christmas," from earliest times called "The Lord of Christmas." In tidewater Carolina, his flowing hair and beard were made of Spanish moss. In one hand he carried mistletoe, in the other a black wand or staff with a silver crook at its top, and with which he delivered his gifts to all. Southerners did not take readily to what they called "the dapper little Manhattan goblin called Santa Claus." Father Christmas was large and regal, with features bold and expressive, yet gentle. He was, all in all, the emblematic representative of the classic Jupiter, rather than the quick, merry, and elfish figure Santa Claus has come to be.
Christmas tippling was widespread. Servants' employment contracts stipulated a bonus for Christmas drinking. Slaves had leisure time for dancing and singing around holiday-long bonfires. Usually, new clothes and extra food were furnished them during this season. "Christmas gift" was a cry heard on every plantation as servants claimed their yearly tip. The old English "Boxing Day" custom of bringing "Christmas boxes" to the master to collect gifts had been transplanted to the South and it thrived even though gifts here were less often money than was usual in England.
The main event on Christmas day, of course, was Christmas dinner. It was a board as festive as could be managed, set before a roaring fire. On this much-anticipated, once-a-year occasion, Southern cooking reached the heights of early American quality and quantity. Traditions in Christmas fare varied from house to house, but a large colonial plantation Christmas feast that required days or weeks to assemble and prepare might include: eggnog, oysters on the half shell, scalloped oysters, clear soup, roast stuffed goose with sauce, baked country ham with mustard sauce, lamb, roast wild turkey with cornbread stuffing, venison, and several other wild game dishes, including, perhaps a grand "Christmas pie." The recipe for this special treat called for a turkey stuffed with goose and chicken and pigeon and seasonings, with rabbit and quail set around, all inside a heavy crust. There were brown and white breads, Brussels sprouts with chestnuts, turnips and greens, baked sweet potatoes and apples, beans and peas, Mary Randolph's salad, fig and plum puddings, orange tarts, bourbon pecan cake, fresh fruit, walnuts and pecans, cider, Port wine, and syllabub.
Christmas was also celebrated with the Wassail bowl, another English tradition familiar to all of us because of the popular verses in the old carol "Here We Come A Wassailing." Wassail, or wes hal (be whole) in Anglo-Saxon, was a toast or greeting which is associated with celebrations of Christmas and New Years from the earliest days. According to tradition, the head of the household invited his family to gather around the bowl of hot spiced ale with roasted apples floating on it. After drinking to their health and prosperity in the coming year, the bowl was passed around to each member of the family who returned toasts to joy and happiness for all. Gradually, this ale became known as wassail; and the Wassail bowl, usually decorated with garlands of greenery, particularly holly, was a popular custom in America from the beginning. Eggnog was widely substituted for spiced ale in the colonies by the time of the Revolution. There was much drinking of these and other cheering and warming potions at the homes of friends and neighbors over the holidays.
Our observances of Christmas represent a rich mosaic of customs based on the winter festivals of many ancient cultures merged with Christian tradition. The lion's share of the credit for preserving and enhancing this universal holiday in America, like so many of the other good things in our unique cultural inheritance, belongs to the traditional Old South.
A veteran supporter of Confederate causes, Col. Bledsoe is Deputy Commandant of the Old Guard of the Gate City Guard of Atlanta.
Christmas in the Early South
Many in the tidewater region of the Southern colonies enjoyed enough wealth and leisure to celebrate the ancient holiday of Christmas in grandest fashion. Largely English, French, and German, often aristocratic, and usually unencumbered by the stern moral earnestness that afflicted their Puritan cousins in the North, these first Southerners thoroughly enjoyed Christmas when they could.
For centuries their European ancestors had observed the 14-day-long season of Christmas-tide, which began on Christmas eve and continued through January 6th, the "Twelfth Day" after Christmas called Epiphany. The Christmas spirit sailed across the Atlantic with them and even during the harsh early years, they often managed to celebrate the Yuletide in the New World with traditional English merrymaking: visiting, music, fireworks, cannon shooting, bonfires, feasting, parties, hunts, games, dances and weddings all before an enormous glowing and blazing Yule log. It had been carefully selected and lighting it on Christmas eve signaled the beginning of holiday merriment. "Carefully selected" in this case meant that servants found the largest, most water-soaked log available since tradition held that the merry season of leisure would last as long as the Yule log burned. Another tradition was to save a small portion to kindle next year's Christmas log.
In New England, the Puritan fathers looked with grim disdain on Christmas. To them, this holiday was a notorious occasion for celebrations in Catholic Europe, and they thus strictly forbade its observance. Work continued on this day unless it fell on Sunday. "Anybody," so ran the enactment by the General Court of Massachusetts, "who is found observing by abstinence from labor, feasting, or any other way, any such day as Christmas day, shall pay for every such offence five shillings." Elders also found it necessary to "Forbid all traffic in plum puddings and the like." For some reason the plum pudding was viewed as a symbol of the whole evil affair. The settlers of the middle colonies held somewhat less dreary views and were not so much bothered by feelings of religious guilt. Many of them enjoyed Christmas with the merriment of their "old country" traditions.
The wealth of our Christmas customs, however, came from the Southern colonies. As the years went by and colonists there increased in wealth, so did their celebrations increase in elaborateness. By the last half of the 18th century Christmas time had become the social as well as religious season for Southerners. Many Southern settlers during early colonial days considered Christmas primarily a religious festival; and although the religious meaning of the season was never neglected the observances leading up to "Twelfth Night" or Epiphany, which commemorates the visit of the Three Wise Men to the Christ Child, were often the most popular and written-about times of the season, even outshining Christmas Day toward the end of that period all the traditional English merrymaking customs and revelry were widely and heartily observed.
The Christmas tree was soon borrowed from German Moravian and Lutheran colonists; but from the beginning Southerners gathered evergreens such as holly, smilax, pine, cedar, laurels, magnolia, and mistletoe to "deck the halls." Wreaths were woven and mantelpieces and pictures festooned. Tidewater Christmases were rarely white, but always green. Juniper or incense might have been burned to protect the household from harm. Another aroma of the season came from the kitchen where Christmas cakes and cookies were baked from long-standing "recipes" passed down from mother to daughter. Gifts were exchanged and carols sung; and specially made huge "Christmas candles" illuminated the whole house.
At the center of all the celebrating was "Father Christmas," from earliest times called "The Lord of Christmas." In tidewater Carolina, his flowing hair and beard were made of Spanish moss. In one hand he carried mistletoe, in the other a black wand or staff with a silver crook at its top, and with which he delivered his gifts to all. Southerners did not take readily to what they called "the dapper little Manhattan goblin called Santa Claus." Father Christmas was large and regal, with features bold and expressive, yet gentle. He was, all in all, the emblematic representative of the classic Jupiter, rather than the quick, merry, and elfish figure Santa Claus has come to be.
Christmas tippling was widespread. Servants' employment contracts stipulated a bonus for Christmas drinking. Slaves had leisure time for dancing and singing around holiday-long bonfires. Usually, new clothes and extra food were furnished them during this season. "Christmas gift" was a cry heard on every plantation as servants claimed their yearly tip. The old English "Boxing Day" custom of bringing "Christmas boxes" to the master to collect gifts had been transplanted to the South and it thrived even though gifts here were less often money than was usual in England.
The main event on Christmas day, of course, was Christmas dinner. It was a board as festive as could be managed, set before a roaring fire. On this much-anticipated, once-a-year occasion, Southern cooking reached the heights of early American quality and quantity. Traditions in Christmas fare varied from house to house, but a large colonial plantation Christmas feast that required days or weeks to assemble and prepare might include: eggnog, oysters on the half shell, scalloped oysters, clear soup, roast stuffed goose with sauce, baked country ham with mustard sauce, lamb, roast wild turkey with cornbread stuffing, venison, and several other wild game dishes, including, perhaps a grand "Christmas pie." The recipe for this special treat called for a turkey stuffed with goose and chicken and pigeon and seasonings, with rabbit and quail set around, all inside a heavy crust. There were brown and white breads, Brussels sprouts with chestnuts, turnips and greens, baked sweet potatoes and apples, beans and peas, Mary Randolph's salad, fig and plum puddings, orange tarts, bourbon pecan cake, fresh fruit, walnuts and pecans, cider, Port wine, and syllabub.
Christmas was also celebrated with the Wassail bowl, another English tradition familiar to all of us because of the popular verses in the old carol "Here We Come A Wassailing." Wassail, or wes hal (be whole) in Anglo-Saxon, was a toast or greeting which is associated with celebrations of Christmas and New Years from the earliest days. According to tradition, the head of the household invited his family to gather around the bowl of hot spiced ale with roasted apples floating on it. After drinking to their health and prosperity in the coming year, the bowl was passed around to each member of the family who returned toasts to joy and happiness for all. Gradually, this ale became known as wassail; and the Wassail bowl, usually decorated with garlands of greenery, particularly holly, was a popular custom in America from the beginning. Eggnog was widely substituted for spiced ale in the colonies by the time of the Revolution. There was much drinking of these and other cheering and warming potions at the homes of friends and neighbors over the holidays.
Our observances of Christmas represent a rich mosaic of customs based on the winter festivals of many ancient cultures merged with Christian tradition. The lion's share of the credit for preserving and enhancing this universal holiday in America, like so many of the other good things in our unique cultural inheritance, belongs to the traditional Old South.
A veteran supporter of Confederate causes, Col. Bledsoe is Deputy Commandant of the Old Guard of the Gate City Guard of Atlanta.
Labels: American Traditions, Christmas, Southern Culture
0 comment Wednesday, June 18, 2014 | admin
Fiddling by Danny Knicely and some wonderful flatfooting by Matty Olwell.
There are some fine young dancers out there these days, which is really heartening to see, for those of us who love flatfooting, and want to see these traditions kept alive.
I came across the video on the Rebellion blog.
Labels: American Traditions, Flatfoot Dancing, Old Time Music