Mr. Blackwell's Weekly Appalachian-American Thesaurus, Week #3

If you grew up in the deep South, as I did, you're aware of the unique quirks of our native dialect. Mark Twain hit on some of it, Jeff Foxworthy has built a career on it, and the entire cast of Hee Haw continues to celebrate it weekly on RFD TV.

Today's words (quite unintentionally associated with food):

Dinner: noun; The midday meal. Known as "lunch" by everyone outside the rural South.

Supper: noun; The evening meal. Known as "dinner" by everyone outside the rural South, except in biblical times.

Sweetmilk: adjective / noun combination; Whole milk. Cow's milk with no butterfat removed, differentiated from buttermilk by taste & consistency. I was in high school before I knew these were two separate words.

Pone: noun; The general measurement of a family-size quantity of cornbread, coincidentially the exact diameter and thickness of a #12 iron skillet.

Sodiecracker: adjective / noun combination; Bland, square, well-salted, almost tasteless snack which is now popularly known as a "Saltine". Goes particularly well with Vienna sausages and pork & beans, especially when eaten outdoors near a river or a campfire.

Loafbread: adjective / noun combination; Also popularly known as "whitebread". Highest and best use is to encase a bread-sized slice of a Better Boy tomato, well-salted, between two slices, with a generous dollop of mayonnaise in between. Goes well with a fruit-jar of sweetmilk, for either dinner or supper. Often also consumed at breakfast by adding lettuce, bacon, and a side of grits, no sugar, please. (It's not that sugar is bad for our health. It's just plain wrong).