With the sound of 4th of July fireworks still ringing in my ears, I got up early Tuesday in the mood for a full breakfast. We were having some work done at the house and Cheryl had errands to run, so I was left, as the saying goes, unsupervised. I headed to my usual breakfast place only to find that they were closed for the week. Disappointed but undaunted, I turned left on 160 and pointed my Ford Edge in the direction of the Big View Café in Indian Land. I was at a loss for a new episode of Back Window and so, tucked my trusty Apple notebook under my arm hoping maybe something would come to me.
Something did!
Two eggs, sunny side up, crisp bacon, grits, toast, and coffee with a side of memories.
I could write a sonnet about my mother’s sausage gravy but breakfast was something she did humbly and without pageantry.
Not so with my father. He couldn’t scramble a single egg but given an audience, he could scramble a dozen. When the family would gather in the mountains or at the beach, He became the breakfast commander. He would proclaim somewhere during the evening of our arrival, that the boys would be in charge of breakfast. The “boys” would be Dad, me, and my brother-in-law Steve. He would roust us at the crack of dawn and begin his ritual.
Bacon was the first priority. I would like to say he used his grandma’s cast iron skillet but, truth be told, he used somebody else’s grandma’s skillet purchased at a flea market stall in Fosco, North Carolina, at the foot of Grandfather Mountain. His bacon technique was unique and I can only guess he learned it on KP duty in the Marine Corps. He would take the package of bacon, slice it open and put the entire, unseparated slab in the pan. I questioned the method only once and was told, “It’ll separate itself out”.
Once the bacon had individualized and was cooling on a plate, Dad would call for the “Whompies”. Sometimes, when I was in Dad’s good graces, I got to whomp the tube of pre-made biscuits against the counter to break the seal. It was like getting a Bronze Star pinned on me by General Patton and I was proud.
Steve, the only real cook, would be put in charge of the grits and he stood side-by-side with Dad, who, having broken a dozen eggs into a bowl was scrambling them with a fork and adding salt and pepper with a flourish.
Just as the spongy blobs were rising to become biscuits and the grits were doing whatever grits do, Dad would prepare the big skillet with bacon drippings and pour in the eggs. Just like in the Marines, you could have the eggs any way you wanted them as long as you wanted them scrambled.
There was no need to wake up the rest of the family. All the clattering and whomping and cooking lore had already done that and they would gather as we brought out the plates and bowls of food. Dad would take his place at the head of the table, Steve would bless the food we would leave no strip of bacon uneaten.
Clean-up was easy for Dad. He didn’t do it. That onerous task was left to his assistants and, thankfully, the womenfolk.
Ah, the Southern breakfast…at least one variant of it. I could stop there. The images conjured up in my mind by those mornings are full of tastes, smells, sounds and conversation.
Now I know that there is no set list of what a Southern breakfast really is. For the readers among you, I do capitalize Southern, because I am old school and when Miss Armstrong taught me English in the 4th grade, the rule was that regions of the country were capitalized. I would also use caps for Northern or Western.
Let’s get back to that to that ritual we call the “Southern Breakfast”. It always starts with coffee, black and strong unless, like me, your Mama started you on coffee at about age three and took the edge off with lots of milk and sugar. My friends scoff but Mama knew best. And let’s take herbal tea right off the menu. We’re regular people here, not a bunch of bongo playing beatniks.
Like the rest of the world, we do like an egg in the morning. It is perfectly okay to have them scrambled, over-easy, sunny-side up or hard boiled. All of those fall within our parameters. Omelets, and things that end in Benedict seem traitorous. We also don’t cozy up to soft-boiled eggs in little cups where we have to hew off the top and dip little strips of toast inside.
I think we agree with most of our countrymen that bacon and sausage complement a good breakfast. Country ham and liver mush are also staples for those of us who grew up below the Mason-Dixon line. If liver mush wasn’t one of your first soft foods, don’t try it. It is completely lacking in eye-appeal and its taste is, like Forrest Gump, different. Corned beef hash, and something called scrapple are invaders and we only order them when we feel reckless. California can keep the avocados and anything called a smoothie that is green in color and taste.
That brings us to grits. I am prepared to allow a little leeway here since it took me a full 60 years to develop a taste for grits and then only if they are well-cooked and not runny. My old Daddy called me a traitor every time I asked to omit grits or, god forbid, selected hash browns at a restaurant. “That’s just mashed-up Tater Tots” he would tell me. I became a grit convert when I was coaxed into trying shrimp and grits. What a fool I had been.
Don’t talk to me about oatmeal. The folks that eat oatmeal spend their winters waist deep in snow, drill a hole in the ice to go fishing and generally don’t know any better. I have seen them travel to a Myrtle Beach IHOP and decide to try grits. They sprinkle sugar on them like on their oatmeal and then say they taste awful. They are right. Bless them for they know not a better way.
My family used to travel, in my pre-teen years to Asheville where we would spend a couple of nights in the Teddy Bear Motor Lodge. We stayed there because it had a pool and was just up the road (or more correctly “up the mountain”) from Buck’s Restaurant. Buck’s was famous for its country ham and red-eye gravy.
I am going to assume that some of you grew up neglected and think country ham is just another name like Smithfield ham, or Virginia ham. You couldn’t be more wrong. Country ham is cured by covering it in a half-inch layer of salt and hanging it up in a wooden shed to let time do its work. Two to three months later, just when the green mold is growing on the outside, the ham is ready.
The salt coating keeps the ham from spoiling but also absorbs a great deal of the moisture inside. This leads the uninitiated to believe it would be better used to repair the soles of boots. Ham purists know th
at country ham, like Cleopatra, is enhanced by a milk bath. Slices soaked overnight in milk become as tender as a pair of suede shoes. Still, it’s not really the meat, it is the fat. Salty and richer than the best bacon, its flavor sets off every “bad for you” alarm in your body. Render that fat to a liquid, pour in rich black coffee, simmer it while chanting some unintelligible spells and you have red-eye gravy, in some areas of the deep South called “bottom sop”. Whisk all you want but the coffee and the fat never mix completely. They just sort of associate with each other.
At Buck’s, Dad would hollow out a space in the middle of his grits and fill it with red-eye gravy. We were quiet until he grinned and went back in for more. Once I was watching him enjoying his breakfast at Buck’s and Mom said, “That’s the same look he had when you were born.”
We like our pancakes in the South, but usually as a side dish.
“Let me have two eggs, scrambled, sausage, grits, toast and a short stack.” The short stack, I am pretty sure, was developed as a precaution after several people exploded at breakfast.
During my second year as a junior in college…I had a good friend and roommate, Bill, who was from Halifax, Virginia. I mention Bill in this episode because we made several trips together to his hometown and would start out early. Once, when we stopped for breakfast just below the Virginia line, the waitress, a pleasant lady of about fifty, took my order and turned to Bill.
“And for you sir?”
When I saw his features shift from Dr. Jeckyl to Mr. Hyde, I knew something good was coming.
“I’ll have the two eggs any style, choice of meat and a beverage.”
I managed not to do a spit take and everything got quiet. The server looked puzzled, turned and took a couple of steps before stopping in her tracks. She came back, Bill ordered and we tipped her well.
Don’t misunderstand me. I am an open-minded soul and you can order anything you want for breakfast and still be my friend. I’m adaptable too, so if you order a whole wheat bagel with avocado on the side and a spinach smoothy, order me a smoothy too. I like mine red, with eight healthy vegetables, a celery stalk swizzle stick and a hefty shot of vodka.
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