The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1916-08-27
ON THE WING
Nothing to Eat But Food"
Nv JAMES H HARD

Jim, 1 declare if things keep going up,
I don't know what we are going to do,
said my good wife few morning since.
WELL" 1 replied, as a wise man said
long ago, Trust in the Lord and do
good, so shalt thou dwell in the land,
and verify thou shalt be fed" and fur
thermore, 81 have been young and now
am DID, yet have 1 never seen the right
eous forsaken nor their seed begging
bread" and if that is true, as it is, you
will always have at least a meal ticket.
Furthermore, if the worst comes to the
worst, our neighbor has some mighty fine
chickens; he doesn't keep dog; the fence
is not high, and the Lord helps those
who help themselves
THAT is interesting" she replied, but
it does not pay bills nor does what you
say enable me to go to the Five Points
market, properly prepared to begin the
day. l like to hear you talk occasionally,
but money is the best conversationalist
l have any acquaintance with, and that
acquaintance is not as intimate as l
would like it to be-
AS has frequently happened, when she
got through replying the conversation Ian
guished, for really there was nothing more
to say.
in the price of flour, sugar, meats and
other necessaries, which has been alarm
ing for sometime, and keeps me fright
ened as to the future. Thinking about
that question made me recall the good
old days of long ago when we never had
to inquire the price of things, and when
the meal got low, all we had to do was
to go to the corn crib, shuck and shell
some corn, put it in a sack, throw it
across mule, go or send boy to mill
and in a few hours have all the bread
we wanted, and we enjoyed eating it,
knowing there was plenty more where it
came from. With some fried ham with
red gravy, hot corn pones coffee or but
termilk, we soon forgot our troubles,
which did not at that time include any
consideration of the sugar trust eve
sweetened with sorghum; the beef trust,
the ice trust, the insurance trust or any
other trust
The word suggested to us only trust in
the Lord and trust in our neighbors and
friends, and it was years after this time
before sa wa sign reading: Poor Trust
is dead; Bad Pay killed him"
Yes we trusted the Lord and our
neighbors and when toward the shank
of the meal we tilted our plates to get
at the gravy with our corn bread, we
were in love with all the world and
hated nobody.
We did not know in those days what
pate de fol gras, consomme, and such
things meant, and as for a menu we
had about as much use for one of those
things as we had for finger bowls, prob
ably if we had been near enough to a
city to have visited it and been handed
a card, we would have looked at it and
said: Til take some of the menu" or
bring me a regular dinner" or like an
enthusiastic young lady said: ooh. let
us have some of the Alabama Carte"
and If the finger bowl had had a piece
of lemon in it, we would probably have
ADDED some sugar and enjoyed drinking
the lemonade, even though we might
have thought it rather weak.
Along in the sixties where we lived
we, of course, always had honlny (grits)
for breakfast and boiled rice for dinner,
when a neighbor killed beef we got
portion of it, and when winter came wei
had fresh pork of our own killing, with
spare ribs, backbones brains, chitter-
lings, souse, liver pudding, sausage, etc,
and l always got the bladder to blow
up, dry, and put peas in to rattle. We
had fried sweet potatoes, fritters, batter
cakes, Waffles, biscuits, corn pone, of
course, chicken in every style until we
got tired Of it, and all the quail, squir-
rels, rabbits and such like as we wanted.
The pork and backbones were. of course,
meal dumplings, COW peas, etc.
When we moved to Charleston, shrimps
shrimp pie, crabs. oysters, fish of sew
eral varieties took the place of the coun-
try fare, but we always had a plenty
and to spare, and I wish 1 had some
shrimp pie, scalloped tomatoes and
chicken pilau right now.
Fred brought home a hatful of may
pops yesterday. and I enjoyed eating
some of them very much. 1t had been
long time since 1 had tasted one
They are not the least fashionable, but
to me they are very palatable.
1t is curious how many things there
are which may be used for food and
what a variety of tastes there are. Since
leaving the old place, l have travelled and
learned what goulash sphagetti, chill con
carne, and many foreign dishes taste like.
l have eaten shark steak, alligator tail,
alligator pears, custard apples been
tempted to taste conch meat, the erst-
while inhabitants of those big shells with
the lovely pink colors which were used
to ornament the whatnot before we got
too high toned or to embroider the walk
from the front gate. The abalone on the
Pacific coast, which is standard food
with the Japanese and Chinese, crawfish
paralysis, and since that time she has
saw her previous to this, she still showed
the remains of her great beauty and was
a gracious and wonderfully charming
woman to friends and acquaintance
alike. Her box at the opera was always
the rendezvous of notablities during the
season, and 1 fancy that she was one
of the only women of modern times who