Southern Restraunt Sightings.

[repsac]

These come from years of experience and living in the deep south. Translations and explanations included for yankees and those not of the united states.

Definitions:

Grits: Cornmeal and water mixed. Boiled to produce a thick liquid like substance. Eaten with salt and butter, or with cheese. NEVER with sugar. Sometimes mistaken for Cream of Wheat, though Grits are white with small black flecks in them.

Country Ham: Ham cured with salt to the point that it will never spoil. Even if left outside for years, it will not rot, nor attract insects. It may mold, but that mold is actually wanted since it adds flavor.

Red Eye Gravy: After cooking ham, the drippings are saved. Black Coffee is added to make very SALTY gravy that is drizzled over Country Ham.

Tea: Drunk iced and sweet in the south. Always sweet and iced. Unsweetened or hot tea by request only.
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Customer walks into a Huddle House (think waffle house) I'm eating breakfast in after just getting off my midnight to eight am shift. They have a decidedly northern accent.

Waitress: Hello, what can I get y'all?
Customer 1: We want something to eat.
Customer 2: I want ham.
Waitress: Ok, what do you want with your ham? Toast, Grits, Eggs, or Hashbrowns?
Customer 1: What's grits?
Waitress: (blinks) Uh. Corn...
Customer 2: Could you bring me a grit so I could try one?

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Customer orders a burger with no meat. (Vegan burger) They then make requests how it should be cooked, in what and so on. The cook shrugs and moves about his business.

As they eat, I can't help but laugh out loud as I see them eat (I'm at the bar and they're a short distance away. They had been rather rude to other customers, talking about how we shouldn't eat meat and such.

Vegan: What's so funny?
Me: If you don't know, you're better off not knowing.
Vegan: (snotty) Oh, and what's that smarty?
Me: Those fries, are cooked in Lard.
Vegan: Lard? What's that?
Me: Rendered pig fat.

The vegan blanched, stood up and ran into the bathroom, I'm assuming to .

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Customer orders ham with a tea, only to complain that the ham is too salty; the tea too sweet, and the waitress too stupid to take a right order. Waitress responds by picking up the sugar, pouring half of it on the ham, and then putting salt in the tea.

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My aunt (passed away) did this one. She came from Indiana.

We walk into a resturant, where the waiter takes our orders. I order a Low Country Boil, and Tea, and my aunt orders the same.

When the teas arrive, she sips it, gags and then starts off about how she didn't want sweet tea and would complain.

Aunt: (to waiter and manager) This idiot here took my order and now I can't eat it.
Manager: What was wrong ma'am?
Aunt: I wanted tea, and this buffon gave me sweetend tea.
Manager: Ah...I see.
Aunt: Well, I'm glad someone's smart enough to.
Manager: You aren't from round here are you?
Aunt: No, I'm not. Why?
Manager: Well, it shows. Ma'am, I hate to tell you this, but in the south, tea always comes sweet and iced. You want unsweet you gotta ask.
Aunt: Well, I'm never eating here again.
Manager: Promise?

[Sofar]

Ah yes, how I love Southern cooking. In my backyard I once held a competition: Eight ounces of country ham versus eight ounces of salt pork, both unwrapped and in the sun. The ham lost the race to rot but won the taste test afterward.

Tea: Drunk iced and sweet in the south. Always sweet and iced. Unsweetened or hot tea by request only.

Except the tea, you have to realize that to the ears of an Englishman that sounds awful.

[KaeZoo]

I've noticed that about the tea. In Michigan (where I live) when you order iced tea, they'll ask if you want lemon but not sugar; it just comes unsweetened. As you go south, the waiters begin to ask if you want it sweetened or unsweetened. Further south, and they stop asking and just start bringing it sweetened.

[IT Grunt]

I've noticed that about the tea. In Michigan (where I live) when you order iced tea, they'll ask if you want lemon but not sugar; it just comes unsweetened. As you go south, the waiters begin to ask if you want it sweetened or unsweetened. Further south, and they stop asking and just start bringing it sweetened.

I'm definitely in the 'border zone', around here (West Virginia) nearly every place asks if you want one or the other. Me, I /love/ southern style tea, with enough sugar to give me a such a high that I'm ready to swim to Tahiti.

[Becks]

Customer orders a burger with no meat. (Vegan burger) They then make requests how it should be cooked, in what and so on. The cook shrugs and moves about his business.

As they eat, I can't help but laugh out loud as I see them eat (I'm at the bar and they're a short distance away. They had been rather rude to other customers, talking about how we shouldn't eat meat and such.

Vegan: What's so funny?
Me: If you don't know, you're better off not knowing.
Vegan: (snotty) Oh, and what's that smarty?
Me: Those fries, are cooked in Lard.
Vegan: Lard? What's that?
Me: Rendered pig fat.

The vegan blanched, stood up and ran into the bathroom, I'm assuming to .

Evil, evil, evil.

I think a lawsuit could result from that.

{Disclaimer: I am NOT a lawyer, never have been or ever will be, and I don't play one on TV.}

[Dips]

Thanks for the information. That will be helpful to know when I travel.

In appreciation I'm going to everyone in on some New England quirks.

Up here "regular" coffee means with cream and sugar.

If you go to a local ice cream stand and order a milkshake, you will get flavored milk. If you want ice cream in your "shake," order a frappe. The e is silent. If you say frap-ay, don't be surprised if people giggle at you.

The normal color for cheddar is a very pale yellow-white.

The normal color for egg shells is brown.

Picallili is the best thing on hot dogs. Also, hot dog rolls are seperated at the sides and sliced on top. This gives you two surfaces to butter and toast.

The best meat in the lobster is in the body just over the top of the legs.

Also, the red stuff is coral and the green stuff is tomally. Some people like it and some don't, but it's edible.

Baked beans are made with mustard, brown sugar, molasses and salt pork.

Real maple syrup. 'Nuff said.

[IT Grunt]

If you go to a local ice cream stand and order a milkshake, you will get flavored milk. If you want ice cream in your "shake," order a frappe. The e is silent. If you say frap-ay, don't be surprised if people giggle at you.

My dad encountered this one years ago while attending training for his company in Boston. In his telling of the story, what he got was a guy getting a jug of milk, shaking it up, and giving him a glass of it when he ordered a milkshake.

[Bond]Shaken, not stirred...[/Bond]

Upon calling him on it, and after describing what he wanted, he was told, "Oh, you mean a frappe!"

[trunks2k]

If you go to a local ice cream stand and order a milkshake, you will get flavored milk. If you want ice cream in your "shake," order a frappe. The e is silent. If you say frap-ay, don't be surprised if people giggle at you.

Not all of New England. That's more of a Maine thing. I've never seen it in CT, RI, or southern MA.

[Dreamstalker]

Customer 2: Could you bring me a grit so I could try one?

A grit?!

I'm a Yankee, pretty much (well, born in VA, then grew up in the northeast) and I adore grits. A (sadly no longer) breakfast place in Los Alamos had the best grits with cheese and green chile on their Sunday brunch buffet.

Never had red-eye gravy but it sounds yummy though.

Customer orders ham with a tea, only to complain that the ham is too salty; the tea too sweet, and the waitress too stupid to take a right order. Waitress responds by picking up the sugar, pouring half of it on the ham, and then putting salt in the tea.

That is absolutely hysterical.

[Dips]

Not all of New England. That's more of a Maine thing. I've never seen it in CT, RI, or southern MA.

I've lived in eastern Massachusetts since I was 2 and local ice cream stands still use frappe to refer to the ice cream concoction (which others call a milkshake) and use milkshake for flavored milk. National chains don't, but the local places still do it.

The one thing I've noticed in Maine, maybe it's just in the area my husband's family comes from (Phillips/Kingsfield) is that frankfurters have bright red food dye on the casing. I've never seen that anywhere else.

Our locally made ice cream is fabulous. There are stands everywhere and the competition is fierce. I heard somewhere that New Englanders consume more ice cream per capita than anywhere else. Which is strange considering our climate. I can't vouch for that fact, but you don't have to drive more than five miles to find a place selling homemade ice cream.

Now I want a coffee frappe.

[wagegoth]

My first husband was from the Northeast. He told me that frappe is mostly a Massachusetts and sometimes north thing.

He also taught me how to make a modern egg cream (minus the egg).

[wagegoth]

That's the thing about the South, show some manners. (I know, I know, does not seem to apply to rednecks.) You can complain, but be polite about it. I love the part about the sugar on the ham and the salt in the tea. Awesome.

I used to work with a woman who complained at every restaurant we went to. I quit going to lunch with her. She expected a menu item at one restaurant to be a duplicate at an entirely different restaurant, or exactly the way her mom made it. RTFM(enu)!!! And ask the waitron if you want to be sure. Don't just spend your lunch (and mine) whining.

[Dips]

Manners will do wonders anywhere. Especially when travelling.

Open-mindedness is good too. Don't think of getting sweet tea when you're expecting hot tea as a problem; look at it as a cool unexpected surprise. If you can only deal with the expected then why bother leaving home?

[Sofar]

If you go to a local ice cream stand and order a milkshake, you will get flavored milk. If you want ice cream in your "shake," order a frappe. The e is silent. If you say frap-ay, don't be surprised if people giggle at you.

Back when I lived in Connecticut, there was only one ice-cream shoppe I knew that did that and they stopped eventually.

As for especially strange foods in the Northwest, geoducks anyone? And let's hear you pronounce that, we are famous for counterintuitive spellings.

[thegiraffe]

Dips, there are an awful lot of ice cream places in Colorado also. We were out there in March....going through all the little towns and all, and it seems each little town had at least 7 or 8 ice cream places - it was incredible! I live in FL, and you'll be hard-pressed to find that many within a 10-mile radius (and it's suburban). These were places that were like....50 miles from other civilization. We were quite amused to say the least.

And the salt in the tea and sugar on the ham was BRILLIANT. Southerners (am one myself - from VA originally) have a lot of pride. Not such a hot idea to insult it...