Posted 8/10/2007 04:49:00 PM by Douglas

Great article about one of the sanctities of Southern culture: Sweet Tea.

Offering up a glass of sweet tea on a hot day in the South is as welcoming a gesture as passing the doobie at a Phish show. It's so ingrained in the Southern DNA—Marion Cabell Tyree included the recipe in a cookbook called Housekeeping in Old Virginia as early as 1879—that people now post videos online of their infants sampling the stuff. It's a frequent menu item for the condemned, as well as a centerpiece at church suppers. As an April Fools' Day prank in 2003, Georgia State Rep. John Noel introduced a bill that would have made it a misdemeanor for a restaurant owner not to include sweet tea on the menu. Most Southerners can easily tell the difference between fresh sweet tea and the stuff from concentrate—and unless their sugar jones is too strong that day, chances are they'll send the latter back.

That's the real indication that Texas is really on the fringe of Southern Culture. Either that, or there are just so many damn carpetbaggers down here that we have to deal with unsweetened tea and a sugar packet. I mean really, what's the point?

And then there's this crap:

Dixie has had some embarrassments in its time: There's that whole Civil War thing,

What?!? That's a bold statement coming from a Jewish Yankee. Check your history, bub, y'all invaded us, 'member?