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Nutrition: Food & Culture

Today I’d like to introduce you to Mr. Charles.

Hi Mr. Charles, I’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.

My name is Charles. I was born on April XX, 1940, in Macon County, Georgia. I am a free spirit. I am a person that loves to have fun. I love people, love, and honesty. And you don’t have to call me Mr. Charles. I tell you to call me dad, but I know you are trying to be professional. [laughs]

Yes, I am trying to be professional. [laughs] Please share three to five meals that were common when you were younger.

We ate good food: grits, eggs, and bacon; chicken with gravy, rice, and cornbread; and pig feet and sweet potatoes. My favorite was pig ear sandwiches. Oh, it was great! Don’t forget about souse meat. I had it about three days ago at a friend’s house. We had souse with wheat bread, and it was good. Have you even heard of souse meat? [laughs]

I have. When we moved down south, one of my relatives ate souse all the time. He preferred hot souse though. I ate hot souse with crackers with him sometimes. I didn’t think it was too bad until I asked what was in it. [laughs] Haven’t had it since.

So, you don’t eat chitlins, huh?

Not since I had to start helping my mother with cleaning them. I think I was in fourth or fifth grade. [laughs]

You want to know what was a good meal?

What’s that?

Crackling cornbread and buttermilk.

Now you are up my alley. Cornbread was one of my favorite foods as a child: not pizza or chicken nuggets but cornbread. I liked all types of cornbread, but hot water cornbread was my favorite. I’ve been the designated cornbread maker since I was about 12 years old. Everybody can’t make good cornbread. My Pawpaw used to eat a piece of hot water cornbread crumbled in buttermilk in a coffee mug with a spoon.

Yes, that’s a good meal. It was all we had for dinner sometimes. And you right: everybody can’t make good cornbread. [laughs]

How have meals changed from then to now in your opinion?

Things were fresher and healthier for you. Food was better back in the day. Tomatoes were so good back then. All you needed was to sprinkle a little salt and pepper on it. We used to pick a tomato and eat it while out in the field whenever we felt like it, but you can’t do that now. Tomatoes and cucumbers spoil with the quickness and look different because of all the stuff they put in them. Food is not as good as it used to be. You can taste too many of the chemicals in it.

You mentioned that the food was fresher. How so? Do you think it is partly due to the preparation?

We didn’t buy stuff at the store. There were no chemicals in our food. We made our own bread. We rolled the wheat and everything ourselves. Just about everything we ate, we raised it. We didn’t buy no meat. We didn’t really buy anything because we didn’t have to shop for much. We had one mule and two cows. We grew a lots of fresh vegetables, pecans, peanuts, peas, sweet potatoes, and sugar cane. We had plum trees, peach trees, and muscadine. Food was fresher because we grew it, and it didn’t come from the store. It didn’t have no chemicals in it.

You were raised on a farm, right?

God yes!

What was that like?

It was good. We had everything we needed. We only had breakfast and supper most of the time. We ate when we needed to. We made our own syrup with cane sugar, and it was good. We would have sweet bakes in the middle of the field where we would pile up sweet potatoes and put cornstalks around them. Just about everybody in my family loves sweet potatoes. We would smoke the meat in a hole in the ground and cover it with pine needles. You could go get a good piece of smoked meat out the hole when you needed it.

I experienced something similar when I visited the Dominican Republic many years ago. They covered a hog in the ground with palm leaves while it was roasting. Did you all freeze the meat to keep it longer?

No. We didn’t have a freezer back then. [laughs] My family was the first family to have electricity in the house but we ain’t have no freezers back then. My grandaddy was the first to have a tractor back then. The house my granddaddy built in 1939 still looks good till this day. My granddaddy won the Ham and Egg Show in 1941 and was on the cover of Time magazine. You know I showed you that, right?

Yes, you have. You left farm life for the city in ’59 and returned to the farm in 2018.  Are you happy to be back on the farm?

God yes! I am glad to be back home growing food with my brothers. One brother grows the food and one brother work with the cows. We have 65 cows now. And one brother mainly watches and helps when he can. [laughs] We have over 500 bunches of collards ready for the people. That won’t last no time at the market, and we will have hundreds more bunches ready with the holidays coming up and all. You know what else?

What?

There is nothing like rainwater on a farm. We have a 45 foot deep well. My uncle used to go in the well on a rope and clean it when sand would come up in the bucket. Now we have a fancy pump hooked up to the well. It is best water you could ever drink. I am very happy to be back home on the farm.

What does a typical day of meals look like for you now?

• Breakfast: A waffle, cheese egg, and sausage
• Supper: Cabbage, neckbone or oxtail, and cornbread
• Snack: Cake and ice cream

I have a snack from time to time. You know we couldn’t really get snacks back in the day. You see more fat people now. Back in the day people were a solid build from eating good food and working hard or fat from eating a lot of good food. Now people are fat from eating a lot of bad food and snacking all day.

Well, we come in all shapes and sizes, but I know what you mean. You’re speaking about the quality of the food that’s available now. I get what you’re saying.

Let’s talk about the food of now – what do you love? What do you not love?

I like to try new things, especially when I eat your cooking. I would say I like eating different food instead of the same thing all the time. You get to see what’s out there. What I don’t like is all the chemicals they put in food nowadays. It is too much.

Would you say it’s been easy adjusting to the food we currently have in America? If not, what are some of the biggest adjustments you’ve had to make?

I haven’t liked it one bit but what can you do? You can taste the chemicals in the food. You know what I mean? Now we got to spend more money to buy organic. It is expensive and it is probably not even organic. I don’t have to worry about the chemicals in my food on the farm. It’s naturally organic.

So, the biggest adjustments for you have been the additives/chemicals and the high cost for healthier food?

Yes.

Do you feel that you are healthy?

Yes. To be an old man like me and can still get around like I do, I am in good shape. [laughs]

How have you been able to stay healthy all these years?

I don’t eat too much. I eat just enough food for when I’m hungry, and I make sure it’s real food. I don’t snack all the time, just some of the time. And I never sit still for too long.

Thank you for taking the time to talk with me about this topic.

Certainly, I like what you do. I hope more people find out what’s wrong with the food so that they can be healthy.