spit take

*the following post is FILLED to the brim with me digressing*

Back when I was a new, and dewy skinned new bride. (*cough* I was 20, at one time) We were trekking from my little hometown on the great plains of Nebraska to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Desert Storm had just ended, and my newly acquired Husband and I were headed across this great land in my Pontiac Sunbird, with everything I OWNED fitting in one car. (Can you imagine all of my life fitting in to one car? A little car? There are days I long for that simplicity.)

Anywho, I had not traveled "south" since a trip to Walt Disney World at the age of eight. I grew up in a VERY working class family so the trip to Florida was a terrible one, consisting of eating sandwiches out of a cooler, and stopping only ocassionally to use the restroom. We drove straight to Florida. The entire 27-29 hour trip straight through, with only one 30 minute accidental diversion. In which my Father got lost in Saint Louis at 2:30am, and made a call to my Uncle to ask for directions. After my Father was told that we were in the worst part of Saint Louis, my Father ran to the car sweating profusely. That is all I really remember about my first trip "south". Well that and Its a Small World, and Space Mountain.

So, back to the main point of this story AGAIN. DH and I were traveling "south" to Fort Bragg, in my white Pontiac Sunbird, 18 inch screen t.v., and dorm microwave in tow, barely able to see through the back window. (Despite DH's best efforts to repack me in a more efficient Army way, and not succeding.)

We pull into a KFC, in Kentucky (I believe) to get iced tea. I was thirsty and soooo hawt. I get my tea, and start drinking it at a rate you see a child. Gulping and breathing, and gulping. when all of a sudden I am stricken with one of the foulest things I believe I have ever tasted......

*insert dramatic music here*

-SWEET TEA-

I had never tasted sweet tea in my life. NEVER. The most exotic form of tea I had tasted at that time was probably sun tea brewed in a jar from someones back patio. No sugar EVER. Tea, always served iced, no sugar. Coffee always served black, no cream and no sugar.

I spit, and made horrid faces, and insisted to my DH, that I had the wrong beverage. This was some sort of "pop" with no carbonation. "This was not the tea I had asked for, these folks got my order wrong!"

For the next year, I learned to expect sweet tea.

And when we moved back North, you know what I missed? Sweet tea. I missed it like a junkie, and quickly had to learn the very Southern art of making sweet tea correctly.

You Southern folks are tricky, you can't just dump sugar into tea and expect REAL sweet tea, it will not happen.

The trick to REAL sweet tea?

Simple syrup (sugar and water boiled on top of the stove until the sugar is dissolved), and then added to freshly brewed tea. Code cracked.

Now that we are back "south", I make unsweetened tea most of the time here in the house. (As 16 years of marriage, babies, and gravity have made me softer). But there are DAYS I long for a delicious glass of sweet tea. And every time, I make it I recall being 20 and driving to Fort Bragg, the look of absolute horror on DH's face as I spit all over the glove compartment and dashboard.

Comments

[Erin]

Haha I remember the first time I had sweet tea...I moved with my mom from Minnesota to Virginia and oh it was AWFUL! But it's funny what we remember about trips we have taken...and it 's funny what makes us laugh years later when we remember them. What didn't seem so funny then now seems like part of the adventure. I haven't been at the military move thing for too long but I've moved 22 times in my life so I have a few experiences to laugh about now that I didn't laugh at when they happened.

[Heather S.]

Ah sweet tea. I NEVER warmed to it. My husband and I both reacted violently to the first surprise sweet tea. He however misses it now that we've moved "up north." I do not!

We were introduced to another southern delicacy while picnicing one day. Some neighboring picnic-ers insisted upon sharing with us their...Boiled Peanuts. Ugh. Neither my husband nor I miss those!

When we lived in the south I missed sushi. I never trusted a "sushi" place that I saw near any of the southern places that I lived. Now I'm out in the rural west and missing the sushi again.

What do I miss from our time in the South? I miss the absence of giant department stores (at least where we were). I miss not feeling somewhat crowded and rushed. I miss the mild winters. Overall, though, I don't so much miss the cuisine! :-)

[Nikki]

Oh my! I recently PCSed out of the South (ok, it was Oklahoma, but still...) and I'm still twitching over not having proper sweet tea. It's the one true habit I acquired while we were there. We came back home and every place we've been, no sweet tea. My dh tried to be nice, and bought me the Arizona Southern Sweet Tea. UGHH! It didn't taste right to me. But now that the code has been cracked, I know what I'll be brewing up tommarow.
It's funny, the whole time we were in Oklahoma, I longed for Pacific Northwest seafood. And now that we're here, all I want is a nice, tender steak. And real sweet tea...

[dagamore]

If you want a good steak in the PNW go to a 'Black Angus', or if you can find one 'The Keg'. If you are near Seattle, there are some great butchers, dont recall the names, and some of the beast gourmet supermarkets in the world. You can even get never frozen Kobi Beef (from Japan no less) dont know if you can justify the cost but its a damn good cut of meat. If you are closer to Olympia there are a few good Butchers one in Pullayp and one in Tumwater. Odly now that I live in Germany, i miss the good seafood from the Olympia Farmers Market. But its all good.

[Jewel]

My husband is the tea drinker in the family. He had the same shocked reaction as many of you the first time he ordered iced tea in the south and they gave him sweet tea. It's funny that the farther south you go, the less they ask if you would like sweetened or unsweetened tea, they just bring ya the sweet tea!

We didn't find any food in the Pacific Northwest that we didn't like; steak, seafood...it was all fantastic. It was one of our best assignments by far and we loved everything about it, especially all the great food and farmer's markets! Oh how we miss it there!!

[Love My Tanker]

Sweet Tea the nectar that calls my name constantly. I grew up on it and if I hadn't learned to make it myself, I would have suffered terribly during all of our military moves.

Your spitting story is what I did the first time I traveled westward and ordered tea. Low and behold it had NO sugar. I kept asking my husband, "who in the world thinks that iced tea is good with no suger?"

To make it worse, we go through two gallons a day of sweet tea in our house. It is mostly water, right? LOL

[Linda]

took me a long time to get used to Southern-style sweet tea. I grew up with the "powdered" version...or the Nestea "cool". NOT the same.

But I do make my tea sweet, when I drink it. AND, I always ask, here in the midwest prarie lands, if they have sweet tea. There are a few places that carry it. McD's started, but that stuff is GARBAGE - it's SO sweet that it would kill even the strongest Southerner.

And there's a deli here that serves a decent version.

But nothing beats my old fashioned southern sweet tea. With the 8 cups water and cup of sugar...and the 10 teabags, lol!!!

[Andi]

I need to get you into the hands of my sweet, southern mother for one day. She'll make you the best iced tea you've ever had, feed you the best southern, home-cooked specialties that you have ever tasted and she'll mother you like nobody's business. We value hospitality down south, and nobody does it better than my "mama."

Hey mom - if you're reading, send me some of your biscuits. Oh, and I'm sending AWTM and the collective down for a day - do what you do best...

[AFWife_Niki]

I can't imagine not drinking sweet tea. Unsweetened tea is soooo disgusting to me! Yuck. My mom and grandma always brewed their own sweet tea on the stove. I'm from NJ and everyone I know only drinks sweet tea. It's not just a southern thing, unless you count the fact that my grandparents are from the south and everyone was raised drinking sweet tea.

I haven't had one glass of sweet tea where I am in Texas that I liked. It's all weak and watery. It's like sugar water and no tea! When it comes to food, the biggest thing I miss from home is the assortment of different cultures. There was Carribean food, Italian food, Greek food, Japanese food, Latin food (NOT Mexican, I mean Peruvian, Puerto Rican and Domenican), yummy yummy seafood, soul food, etc. Especially soul food. I mean really? What does a girl have to do eat fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, cabbage, yams and buttermilk biscuits in a restaurant? And the Chinese food here is not too good either. It doesn't help that the health dept. found a dog in the freezer of one of the Chinese restaurants.

All that's down here are steakhouses and Mexican food. Not very much variety. We don't even have an Applebee's or Friday's! Another AF wife I work with and I always talk about how we miss the varieties of culture and food from home. She's from Los Angeles.

[Reasa]

Yummy!!! I love sweet tea. My Mom is from Nebraska and my Dad from east Texas. We had two pitchers of tea in the fridge at all times. My Mom's unsweet stuff and my Dad's Sweet Tea. Inever could get used to the bitter taste of unsweet tea. Here in Central Texas everywhere I go I just ask for Sweet Tea. They always bring it to me with alot of ice and just perfect.
We went back to Nevada this spring and had to add sugar to our tea one night. We forgot we were not at home. The tea was not stong enough so it was like drinking sugar water. YUCK!!

[up4hiking]

Being in NH now I REALLY miss the sweet tea, form Chick Fila is the best....

[Marine Wife]

Andi,
The "collective," huh?
:-)

[Ramie]

SOOO love sweet tea.....if we could do away with the humidity in the south, I'd be all set here......but the humidity is a killer. can't take it! (mixed with 100 degree temps for weeks on end, it seems to be taking me over the edge!)

[midwestmom]

I love sweet tea, my hubby got me hooked. He drinks gallons of it and we always have 2 pitchers of it in the fridge. The thing is it never taste right when I make it, so I always wait for him to make it. Hubby is 4 months into a 12 month deployment and if you look in my fridge right now there is no sweet tea. I made a couple of sad attempts but finally gave up and washed the pitchers and put them away. I may try you receipe for the perfect sweet tea just so I can open my fridge and feel like he is here and not half a world away. Thanks.