Other foods we like to taunt you with: Grits, collard greens, unsweetened corn bread, fried chicken livers. If a Southerner serves you all of those items with a bowl of boiled okra on the table as well, they are testing you. If they add pickled pigs feet or chitlins, they are trying to get rid of you. No sane person really likes chitlins, no matter what they say.I freely confess to failing that test, since I don't eat liver or any other organ meat and the slimy texture of boiled okra is incredibly off-putting. The less said about chitlins, the better. *queasy*
-elorie, on okra as a litmus test
I grew up in Mississippi, but my mom was from Long Island and so my exposure to real Southern food was mostly limited to trips down to Rolling Fork to visit my mamaw and papaw. I'm pretty sure that I was well into my 20s before I realized that some people put sugar in corn bread. Sugar (well, simple syrup) goes in iced tea, not corn bread.