Boiled Peanuts and Southern Cooking

First we have a picture. It's something I love sooooo much I can't express my love for these. Look.....YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM I am eating them at this very moment! The oh so salty goodness, the salty juice they are lovingly cradled in, the perfect texture, not crunchy like a regular peanut but not very soft. Kind of like steamed veggies. I LOVE these things. I gave Patience a little tiny sliver to try last night. She was not thrilled. I apologized to her for not raising her in the true Southern fashion in which I was raised. That earned me a raised eyebrow but no comment. *giggles*

My family comes from Kentucky, specifically Glasgow, Kentucky. They migrated there from Tennessee and before that were in Virginia, before that, Germany. We were originally Bischoff. Anyway, as you can see we are Southern to the bone. With this proud heritage comes a nutritious Southern diet. Yes siree, I grew up with the best food in the world!

My grandma made the best biscuits in the galaxy. I still drool a little when I think of them. No matter I grew up at her side, helping her, I can never make them as good as she did. I would eat bits of dough as she rolled the dough out, cut the biscuits out with an empty can, mush the scraps together and do it again. Pinto beans and cornbread. Not the pan cornbread. The cornbread I love looks like a pancake. You make the batter up with corn meal and other stuff, heat up a skillet, melt butter and then cook like pancakes. OMG! I can make that and now I want some. Pinto beans were the hard beans in a bag that you need to pick the rocks out of, soak and then cook them.

Grits with lots of butter. I love putting shredded cheddar and crumbled bacon on mine. Black-eyed peas, no not the group. Fried okra *makes note on grocery list*, hominy. My grandpa loved it. No one else did. I never did understand how he could stand to eat that stuff. When grandma cooked it, it stunk up the whole dang house!

Everything was fried in lots of butter or lard. Real, honest to god lard, homemade gravy made in part with bacon drippings if it was breakfast or made with fried chicken or fried cube steak drippings from dinner. Homemade mac and cheese, made with elbow macaroni, put into a baking dish and topped with slices of american cheese. Hush puppies, can't forget them. Not sure if they're a southern thing or not, but man are they good!

Grandma loved desserts. We had apple pie, cherry pie, apple and cherry cobbler, butterscotch pie, the yummiest chocolate pie, banana pudding, lemon meringue pie, key lime pie. These and so much more!

Now I've made myself hungry. *sigh* I've got some good stuff for next week's grocery list though. *big grin* As with all southern women, grandma didn't ask, "How ya doin?" She said, "Did ya eat yet?" or "You're too skinny. Let me fix up something for ya." I'm like my dad, skinny as a rail. Grandma never gave up trying to put some meat on my bones.