(melodic tune)
I come from a family of serious eaters
and I've tried to eat up to my family's standards.
My mother's fried chicken was the best thing I ever ate.
If I could ever write anything that's as good
as my mothers fried chicken, I'll be proud.
The Way Folks Were Meant to Eat,
read by the Author, Roy Blount Jr.
These days people worry so much about their hearts,
that they don't eat hearty.
The way folks were meant to eat is the way my family ate
when I was growing up in Georgia.
We ate till we got tired.
Then we went whew and leaned back
and whole heartedly expressed how much we regretted
that we couldn't summon up the strength
right then to eat some more.
When I moved to the North East,
I met someone who said she liked to stop eating
while she was still just a little bit hungry.
I was taken aback.
Intellectually, I could see it was a sound
and even an admirable policy.
Lord knows it kept her in better shape than mine did me.
I just thought it was crazy.
We have only so much appetite allotted to us
in our time on this earth, was my feeling,
and it's a shame to waste any of it.
People I grew up with wanted to get on out
beyond their appetite a ways
to make sure they used all of it.
They wanted to get full.
They intended to get full.
If a meal left them feeling just a touch short
of overstuffed, they were disappointed.
I knew a man once who complained
about those little Spanish peanuts
because they never added up to enough
to give him any reason to stop eating 'em
'til they were all gone
and then he was still up to eating some more.
"I can't get ahead of 'em," he said.
But eating right is not just a question of quantity.
Primarily, it's quality.
It's not letting any available good taste
to go unswallowed.
The people I grew up eating with didn't just take a few
of the most obvious bites out of a piece of chicken
and decide abstractly,
"well, I've eaten this piece of chicken."
They recognize that the institution
of fried chicken demands a great deal of a chicken,
and they felt bound to hold up their end.
They ate down to the bones and pulled the bones apart
and ate in between the bones
and chewed on the bones themselves.
And the bones that weren't too splintery,
they gave to the dogs who were glad to have them.
Unless they're over bred, dogs, generally, are Southern.
Eating is like reading and writing.
A book ought to be something that a person can read
the way a person is meant to eat chicken,
something with plenty of unabashed and also intimate flavor.
Ready and deep-dived flavor.
Flavor hard to separate from the structure.
Flavor that is never really exhaustible.
Even the dogs don't get the last of it
because they eat too fast.
Getting all the good of it should be the determination
of a reader as well as an eater.
And a writer, as well as a cook,
should be determined to get plenty of good into it.
Eating also goes hand in hand,
so to speak, with talking.
Folks I grew up with talked while they ate,
about what they were eating.
When several sides and generations
of a family of such folk sat down together around a table,
with 10 or 12 generous platters of food in front of them,
they sounded like this.
"And that's a nice service, amen."
"Pitch in."
"I don't know where to start first."
"Mm-mmm."
"Big Momma has outdone herself tonight."
"Well, I just hope y'all can enjoy it."
"I believe I could eat a horse!"
"Would you look at them tomatoes?"
"Mmm, don't they look good?"
"Now, Tatum, slow down."
"You let that child enjoy himself."
"You'd think we didn't feed him at home."
"Well he didn't get any snap beans."
"Lord, pass that child some snap beans."
"Lila, how 'bout you over there?
"You need something more."
"Butter beans."
"Ooh, Lynn, nah, I'm working on this corn."
"Come on, just a dab."
"Well, you talked me into it."
"Mm-mmm, awful early to be gettin' this good a corn."
"Eunice, would you send that okra back around?"
"Look at me, just a puttin' it away."
"I'm eatin' like a field hand."
"Little more tea to wash it down?"
"Mm-mmm, these greens."
"Anybody want anything?"
"I will have one more helping
"of that squash if nobody minds."
"It's so good."
"Little cornbread to sop that juice?"
"One more mouthful of ham,
"then I do have to stop, sure enough."
"Look at all this chicken left."
"Have a little more there, Charles."
"But where would he put it?"
"And just a spoonful of that gravy to put on my peas."
"Charles, we didn't raise you
"to mix your gravy with your peas."
"See, now you let that child eat the way he likes it."
"Mm-mmm."
"More rolls anybody?"
"I think this is all I can hold."
"You better eat some more of this good chicken."
"No, I gotta save room for pie."
"Look at that pie."
"Mmm, what is in this pie?"
"This pie is so good."
"Oh, mmm, how do you get your crust
"to do like this thing, Momma?
"My crust won't do like this."
"Oh, your crust does fine."
"Mm-mmm-mmm."
"Well, I have eaten myself sick."
"Mm-mmm, wasn't that good?"
"I don't think I could touch another bite."
"I'm about to pop!"
"Mmm, yes Lord, them tomatoes especially good."
"Got plenty more, now, I could slice right up."
"No, no.
"I'd die."
(soft banjo music)

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