A True Southerner

I love southern foods.

Mashed potatoes... with or without gravy works for me. Fried okra. Sweet potato casserole. Pecan pie. Grits. Chicken livers, even.

And I love garden-grown tomatoes better than just about any vegetable out there (let's skip the whole "it's a fruit" argument). Because my very southern grandpa got me hooked on them when I was a pup.

This year, the tomato plants my father-in-law gave me at the beginning of summer got a slow start. And just a few weeks after they decided to yield like gang-busters, the cooler weather signaled the arrival of fall.

I gave away a slew of tomatoes before someone suggested I pull the green ones off the vine before a frost hit and sit them in a cardboard box to ripen indoors.

And the other suggestion I received was to make fried green tomatoes. Several people even passed on recipes.



Fried green tomatoes are one southern food I've not tried.

But, I'm almost always game to try new foods. It's about the only area in life where I claim to have a sense of adventure. The rest of the time, I'm all for the "safe and sound" approach.

So I made fried green tomatoes last night. And I ate fried green tomatoes last night.

And I don't get it. I found nothing worthy of inspiring a chick flick to honor the food's name.



Actually, I thought they were downright disgusting. Even after I poured on plenty of salt. Still yuck.

Spencer liked them though. But I think he gets his taste buds from both my dad, who eats anything that won't move off his plate, and my mother-in-law, who likes food so hot and spicy that she could breathe fire after eating.

Clay and Allison wouldn't even try them. And after tasting them myself, I didn't make them.

I'm not completely willing to write them off. Maybe I messed them up somehow. I'll have to order fried green tomatoes at a restaurant some day.

But I have a feeling that I'm always going to like tomatoes ripened. And fresh from the garden.