I recieved this Email from my Cousin who now lives near Ft. Worth, TX
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MY SOUTH!

This was written by Robert St. John, executive chef and owner of the Purple Parrot Cafe, Crescent City Grill and Mahogany Bar of Hattiesburg , MS.

Thirty years ago I visited my first cousin in Virginia. While hanging out with his friend, the discussion turned to popular movies of the day.

When I offered my two-cents on the authenticity and social relevance of the movie Billy Jack, one of the boys asked, in all seriousness; 'Do you guys have movie theaters down there?' To which I replied, 'Yep. We wear shoes too.'


Just three years ago, my wife and I were attending a food and wine seminar in Aspen, Colo. We were seated with two couples from Las Vegas.
One of the Glitter Gulch gals was amused and downright rude when I described our restaurant as a fine-dining restaurant.


' Mississippi doesn't have fine-dining restaurants!' she insisted and nudged her companion. I fought back the strong desire to mention that she lived in the land that invented the 99-cent breakfast buffet.


I wanted badly to defend my state, my region, and my restaurant with a 15-minute soliloquy and public relations rant that would surely change her mind. It was at that precise moment that I was hit with a blinding jolt of enlightenment, and in a moment of complete and absolute clarity it dawned on me -- my South is the best-kept secret in the country. Why would I try to win this woman over? She might move down here.


I am always amused by Hollywood's interpretation of the South. We are still, on occasion, depicted as a collective group of sweaty, stupid, backwards-minded, racist rednecks.. The South of movies and TV, the Hollywood South, is not my South.

This is my South:
My South is full of honest, hardworking people. My South is the
birthplace of blues and jazz, and rock n' roll. It has banjo pickers and fiddle players, but it also has BB King, Muddy Waters, the Allman Brothers, Emmylou Harris and Elvis.


My South is hot. My South smells of newly mowed grass. My South was kick the can, creek swimming, cane-pole fishing and bird hunting.

In my South, football is king, and the Southeastern Conference is the kingdom.

My South is home to the most beautiful women on the planet.

In my South, soul food and country cooking are the same thing.

My South is full of fig preserves, cornbread, butter beans, fried
chicken, grits and catfish.

In my South we eat foie gras, caviar and truffles. In my South, our transistor radios introduced us to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones at the same time they were introduced to the rest of the country.

In my South, grandmothers cook a big lunch every Sunday, so big that we call it dinner (supper comes later).

In my South, family matters, deeply.

My South is boiled shrimp, blackberry cobbler, peach ice cream, banana pudding and oatmeal cream pies.

In my South people put peanuts in bottles of Coca-Cola and hot sauce on almost everything.

In my South the tea is iced and almost as sweet as the women. My South has air-conditioning.

My South is camellias, azaleas, wisteria and hydrangeas.

In my South, the only person that has to sit on the back of the bus is the last person that got on the bus.

In my South, people still say 'Yes, ma'am,' 'No ma'am,' 'Please' and 'Thank you.'

In my South, we all wear shoes....most of the time.

My South is the best-kept secret in the country.

Please continue to keep the secret....it keeps the idiots away!

I agree with some of that post, but certainly not all of it. It was a nice story though.

I moved to Boston for about 8 years and while I was there I was commonly asked a single question that strangely enough, everyone asked the same. That question was "So you're from Mississippi? Are your Mother and Father related?"

I would just answer in return..."Of course they are related. They are Husband and Wife".

It never failed that when I said this, the person would realize the mistake they made in asking their question and then would turn red and drop the subject.

Sure, people who have never been to the south have their stereotypes, just as people from the south have stereotype about California, New York, and other places they may have never been.

As far as the South being the birthplace of Blues, Jazz, and Rock and Roll, I would question the Jazz part. I think Harlem, NY, with great early jazz musicians like Jelly Roll Norton did more for Jazz than the south ever did.

My South is a place where anything and everything is deep fried, causing it to have the highest obesity rate in America.

My South is a place where I can't go a single day without hearing something racist being uttered.

My South is a place of closed minded people who dislike change.

My South is over run with low self esteems and single teenage mothers.

My South statistically has the highest high school drop-out rate in the nation...who needs school anyway?

MY SOUTH!
Not all of the stereotypes are inaccurate.