# I'm an official Southerner now! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 26, 2000, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606 "2000-06-26T19:12:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![HomeSlice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/9d8465/32.png) [@HomeSlice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HomeSlice)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/21 "2000-06-27T02:36:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > Um. Ya’ll have Florida State. What else? 🙂 > > \*\* Those Noles dont count as southerners. The only SOUTHERN ACC team is Clemson. ---
**Author:** ![Asmodeus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@Asmodeus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asmodeus)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/22 "2000-06-27T02:43:09Z")
Ahem… UNC NCState Wake Forest Duke Don’t get more southern than those. Still no sugar?? ---
**Author:** ![HomeSlice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/9d8465/32.png) [@HomeSlice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HomeSlice)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/23 "2000-06-27T03:12:07Z")
Those schools atract too many yanks fer my taste. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![TN\_hippie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@TN\_hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TN_hippie)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/24 "2000-06-27T03:32:16Z")
…But _REAL BBQ_ is pulled pork. ---
**Author:** ![TVeblen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@TVeblen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVeblen)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/25 "2000-06-27T03:39:28Z")
Congrats, **pl**! Sounds like you’re settling right in. Lived for a bit in the South and loved it. Unfortunately, the grits thing is for real. I grew up on 'em, because my mom loved them. I still hate 'em; they taste like wallpaper paste. (Heresey, but try loads of salt and tabasco. They’re still nasty but at least taste like _spicy_ wallpaper paste.) Brush up on you manners; Southerners are sticklers for manners. And learn to slow down. That was the hardest for me, at least, because it’s a real reversal from northern/ubran manners, i.e. chatting and passing the time is basic _courtesy_, the direct opposite of “wasting someone’s time”. I don’t know what kind of bbq prevails in your section of VA, but once you get used to richly smoked meat with the vineagar mop, you’ll yearn for it for the rest of your life. Have fun, pl! Veb ---
**Author:** ![Asmodeus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@Asmodeus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asmodeus)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/26 "2000-06-27T03:48:12Z")
Actually…sliced from the shoulder after being slow cooked over a hardwood fire…then chopped. Served with bbq slaw and sweetened iced tea and hush puppies. ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/27 "2000-06-27T03:58:12Z")
Well,please post the infamous license photo then. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/28 "2000-06-27T04:18:55Z")
Son, you reside in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Perhaps your great-great-grandchildren will call themselves Virginians, but never Southerners. You, sir, are a Yankee and will die a Yankee. Like me. As a former Virginia resident, need I remind you that Virginia is not of the South but is a separate creation that has less in common with Georgia than it has with Jacobian England? And that the War Between the States would have been won had it not been for the scurrilous Southern states caving in and allowing SUCCESSFUL invasions (again, see Georgia)? I must apologize to my Southern brethern for the tone of this posting. It’s not me talking. It’s just what I was taught in a Virginian school. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/29 "2000-06-27T04:19:14Z")
Okay, this looks like the right place to ask a question about Southern stuff, seeing how many experts on Southern culture have congregated here. So here goes, and please excuse my ignorant Californian self: What are grits? I have heard of them, but never seen them, and certainly never eaten them. ---
**Author:** ![BigGiantHead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b4bc9f/32.png) [@BigGiantHead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigGiantHead)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/30 "2000-06-27T04:28:08Z")
As the 'necks down here in Georgia like to say: “If our cat had kittens in the oven, we wouldn’t call them biscuits.” :rolleyes: (Count yer blessings) Oh, and **Kyla** , grits are a tortured product of the corn plant having the look and feel of Cream of Wheat, but with less insouciance. ---
**Author:** ![Asmodeus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@Asmodeus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asmodeus)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/31 "2000-06-27T05:13:55Z")
grits (grts) pl.n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb) ``` 1.A ground, usually white meal of dried and hulled corn kernels that is boiled and served as a breakfast food or side dish. 2.Coarsely ground grain, especially corn. ``` [Alteration of Middle English grutta, coarse meal, from Old English grytta, pl. of grytt.] ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/32 "2000-06-27T05:25:29Z")
Grits is a lot like somebody dumping a spoonful of Cream of Wheat on your plate where you are expecting hash browns, except it’s tasteless corn, not tasteless wheat. I’ve never tried them with sugar; that might help. However, put them in a greased loaf pan, let ‘em congeal in the fridge overnight, slice, fry, and add butter and syrup, now THAT’S good eatin’. AKA “fried mush.” You can do the same with Cream of Wheat and Malt-o-meal, but not oatmeal. Or you wouldn’t want to. ---
**Author:** ![Gunslinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gunslinger)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/33 "2000-06-27T05:36:45Z")
Ya’ll are just trying to make up for the fact that your states have _always_ been part of another country. 😛 (I’m from Texas, BTW) ---
**Author:** ![TroubleAgain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@TroubleAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroubleAgain)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/34 "2000-06-27T05:37:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > When I first read the title I was all ready to say the same thing, but after reading the threads I realized that living in Florida now makes me no more southern than living in Cleveland. What a shame, I was really starting to like grits too. > \*\* Amp, you can be a southerner, living in Florida IF like me a) you were born here. b) your parents were born here. c) your grandparents were born here… Get it? The rest of you are just damned yankees–let me explain. Them that comes and goes, is just yankees. Them that comes and stays is damn yankees. 😃 P.S. Liking grits is not a prerequisite. Eating them, maybe, but not liking them. ---
**Author:** ![TN\_hippie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@TN\_hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TN_hippie)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/35 "2000-06-27T05:56:34Z")
The only things one mixes with grits is eggs over easy and sausage gravy or hog jowel. 'Nuff said. ---
**Author:** ![Ayesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c0e974/32.png) [@Ayesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ayesha)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/36 "2000-06-27T06:35:31Z")
My husband likes his cornbread sweet, so I do add sugar. A And TN\*hippie, you put grits in grvey ? Eewwwwww. Eggs overeasy, ok I do that sometimes. Butter salt and pepper are all grits need. ---
**Author:** ![Ayesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c0e974/32.png) [@Ayesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ayesha)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/37 "2000-06-27T06:36:44Z")
Ahem, GRAVY, thank you. ---
**Author:** ![NothingMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b77776/32.png) [@NothingMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NothingMan)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/38 "2000-06-27T09:54:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > The only things one mixes with grits is eggs over easy and sausage gravy or hog jowel. 'Nuff said. > \*\* Abso-freaki-lutely, preach on brother TN. Why would anyone put sugar on grits ?? They’re _grits_ not oatmeal, duh ! ---
**Author:** ![Amulet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@Amulet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amulet)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/39 "2000-06-27T10:07:36Z")
Just now found this thread. Southerners can too be from Florida, so long as it’s the part of Florida above I4. (The rest is where New York goes to die.) I was born and raised here, lived here all my life, and I challenge anyone to say that I’m not Southern. I am eligible for membership in the Daughters of the Confederacy, for heaven’s sake. I can make cornbread and biscuits from scratch with no recipe, and my iced tea is really tea-flavored sugar water. Besides, wasn’t Tallahassee the only Southern capitol that didn’t fall to the damn Union in the War of Northern Aggression? ---
**Author:** ![GolfWidow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a698b9/32.png) [@GolfWidow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GolfWidow)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606/40 "2000-06-27T13:02:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > Southerners can too be from Florida, so long as it’s the part of Florida above I4. > \*\* I live in Lakeland and we stradle I-4. Can you tell me whether I’m considered a Southerner or not? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-an-official-southerner-now/23606.md?page=3)