Renowned Southerner, the late Eugene Walter, was raised in Mobile, Alabama in the home of his grandparents. He once recounted breakfast as he remembered it, growing up there in the first half of the 20th century. Even though he is long gone, his words linger - and make my mouth water still today:
"If somebody was going off very early, hunting or fishing or traveling, his breakfast might be at the huge square kitchen table, but generally it was in the dining room, and a serious meal. There were flowers in the middle of the table, a small bouquet flanked by the dishes of jam or preserves and the honey pot and sorghum pitcher. The fruit juice fad was unknown, but there was usually an orange or stewed fruit to begin the meal. In summer it might be iced cantaloupe or Persian melon, with a wedge of lemon and a sprig of mint, or the much-appreciated Concord grapes. Then came grits with fried ham, or fried chicken livers or eggs in any one of a dozen ways. Calves' brains and scrambled eggs appeared once a week, and in the winter we had fried pork chops or small steaks - "breakfast steaks" - or pork sausage with fried apples. The hot biscuits, often the sort called "twin biscuits" because they were cooked in pairs, one on top of the other with butter in between, accompanied everything but came into their own as sops for sorghum. My favorite breakfast was fried fish and fried bananas. On rare occasions red plantains turned up. There was most always a plate of bacon. Coffee with cream went along with the entire meal. Nobody drank sweet milk; it was seldom seen outside the kitchen. Buttermilk was my beverage."
While today's Southern breakfast is a pared-down version of the one just described, the roots are there in every drive-through ham biscuit and every "country breakfast" on the Cracker Barrel menu. Can't speak for y'all, but I could eat breakfast for every meal - and often do:-))
Photo by Beth Yarbrough.
Eugene Walter's text is from American Cooking Southern Style, Copyright 1971 Time Inc.
