COVER -> RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT
CHITTLINS & POSSUM GRAVY - Like I told ya'll last week, my relatives came up here to California from Louisiana for the Thanksgiving holidays. I was only partially looking forward to it. There was as many folks me and my girl wanted to see as not.
A lot of my people come from down around Vermillion and Terrebonne Parishes. You ever heard of Houma, Louisiana, you know what I'm talking about. Lots of Cajun folks down that way, sugar cane plantations, swamp land, alligators and bridges. A few Choctaw Indians... I'm glad somebody had the sense to move outtah there and come up to this Paradise that is the Bay Area. The only place I wannah see an alligator is on some shoes in a store window.
I think of this because my Aunt Sis, a meaner woman you'll never find, decided to do something uncharacteristic (that is, generous) and bring along some food for the family reunion. She figured the Californicated section of the family might have lost our taste for down-home cooking and she meant to rectify that by making up a big batch of chittlins. She even conned --- I mean, persuaded, Little Bubba to stay sober long enough to make up some possum gravy, too.
That was a nice thought on her part, I guess, but I gottah share something with ya'll:
I NEVER been able to abide chittlins! I know some folks from Down South might consider them good eatin', but I can't get behind it.Me, I think the smell of cookin' chittlins just makes your house all funky-smellin'. I think they are tasteless. Like somebody scraped some chewed-up gum from the bottom of a seat, cooked it up, then smothered it with vinegar so you might think you was eatin' something.
My girl's eyes got all wide when Aunt Sis dropped that big old bowl of steaming hog guts on the table. I thought she might leave the table and run toward the porcelain throne and heave. But she didn't. She grabbed my hand under the table and squeezed it real hard.
"Don't mean nuthin'," I said to her real low. "Just eat what you want."
Being family, and probably because the old biddy saw me turning my nose up as the bowl was passed around them tables we had put together so all the grown folks could eat at once, Aunt Sis made sure that I "at least try" a portion of her damned chittlins.
I forced myself to chew that tasteless, gristle-like mess, after smothering it with as much tabasco sauce as I thought I could handle. I pretended to smile as I chewed. I wasn't gonnah let anybody blame me for startin' a mess over the Thanksgiving feast.
(And yeah, I tried Little Bubba's possum gravy even though I always wondered why folks would hunt down an animal that had such a good talent for not makin' itself conspicuous. Wassup, we gottah eat every damn animal that moves in the woods?)
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Well, Uncle Jake, Aunt Sis's husband, had gotten even better at not listening to her venomous gossip about everybody that wasn't there for the reunion than even I remembered. I think Uncle Jake has made it a science to only hear folks who speak in a certain octave range now.
Louis, Little Bubba, Freak, Sadie, Laquita, they is still Wide-Loads, still talk trash and put away enough food and liquor to stock an army PX, still say some of the funniest stuff I ever heard in my life. Some of 'em got kids now, though, in and out of wedlock.
It was a relief to see the family starting to take to my girl, Tanya. I mean, it's only been four years now. They are startin' to pick up that she ain't going away, I guess...
Auntie Lucille's boy, Crispus, who came back from the Gulf War, was at the reunion, too. I hadn't seen him since we was kids. He was lookin' fine. Said he decided not to re-up this year 'cause he wants to get married. Can't afford that on his military pay. Besides, he's getting up there in years now and don't dream about being career military like he used to...
Luckily, because we needed to visit Tanya's family, too, we only had to hang around the reunion for three, four hours or so. Then we could beg off and head back down to Oaktown and be around folks making the rounds much like we were. A couple quick egg-nogs, eat what food you could handle, play with the kids and move on to the next house. An hour here, twenty minutes there. Tanya's kinfolk border on The Normal. Maybe that's because they all live around here.
All in all, we came away with so many covered plates, trays, and "doggy bags" from these meals that we ain't had to cook up nothing for most of this week. Me, I'm a fool for a good cold turkey sandwich. Tanya knows how to make 'em with lots of mayonaisse, salt and pepper, tomato, onion and pickle. And the girl is killer on your turkey soup! That's something to be thankful for.
Shout out to Brother Rod: Hey, Homes, why don't you get your Moms to cook up one of them farina pies you used to tell me about and some plum pudding and ship them over from the islands. I'll trade you some chittlins and possum gravy I took away. That way, you can have a taste of real Soul Food this Christmas. Hey, I might even throw in some ham hocks and greens. Whaddaya say?
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RDR RECOMMENDED SITE OF THE DAY: With all the news about dot-com this-and-that, some people might be forgetting how screwed up things can be in the brick-and-mortar world. SSDD. This story in Brill's Content will give you a clue... about sleaze.
