The sign reads, “Put some South in ya mouth” but only Tuesday through Saturday night. The sign promotes the Southern Smoke Barbeque and Catering Company, a restaurant I pass daily. Southerners do a lot of communicating with food, harkening to our primitive and primary natures. In our gumbos and pecan pies, our hoppin’ John and hog jowls, our fried chicken and buttermilk biscuits, we express an undefinable love residing in our soul.
Southerners are a religious people. We can ritualize most things we find worthy. Autumn Friday and Saturday nights are good examples. We like our Sundays, too, but Mama never gave us a choice on Sunday. We just said, “yes ma’am” and went.
In the South, you are known by your religion whether it be a bulldog, yellow jacket, tiger or Presbyterian or Baptist or Methodist, and attendance on Friday, Saturday or Sunday is immaterial. Religion isn’t so much the day of the week, but more the blessings expressed as we break bread in our gatherings.
Southerners know how to share love with flour, sugar and butter along with meat smoked over fire pits and coals. Cole slaw on the side is a must. Hush puppies are a plus, love understood.
We believe in food’s medicinal power for both body and soul. My mother made the best pound cake I ever put in my mouth and it cured most things by placebo save maybe gout. Pound cake on a taste bud makes a bad day disappear. It travels well especially when a neighbor loses a loved one or is convalescing. There is more than a pound of love in a pound cake.
Food defines us but does not confine us. We won’t allow ourselves to be limited by it any more than we limit our faith to a day of the week. We carry God in our heart and spread his message in our casseroles. We don’t have a monopoly on love, but we have perfected it in the oven.
The euphemistic feel-good folks among us talk about ministering through community inter-connectivity. A Southerner ministers with plates and bowls covered by tin foil or plastic wrap. This is our vocabulary. It speaks without us talking, except to say, “We thought y’all might like some fixin’s.
I have lived this ritual all my life. I have been a participant in giving and receiving. I have put some “South in my mouth.” In a strange, familiar way, it is the same food I get from reading the good book or worshipping. When Jesus said, he was the bread of life, Southerners took it seriously and passed it on in our jams and mint jellies.
There is a firm picture in my mind of the prodigal son returning home. The father, so overjoyed, commanded his servants to kill the fatted calf. I have witnessed this scene many times over in my South, biscuits, cole slaw, and hush puppies included.
“Those who have ears to hear, let them hear” (Matthew 11:15).