It is getting to be that time of the year again when the eating habits of the folks in the south start cranking up toward the holidays. Let’s face it, we southerners love to eat. It might be a church social, tailgating at the football game, grilling steaks at the hunting camp or our holiday family meal marathon, we love to eat. I heard that the number one pin up girl poster for our southern boys in the army overseas is Paula Dean.  So, I felt that it is time to address this issue in our culture; who stole supper and replaced it with dinner in the land of magnolias, Bob White quail, Spanish moss, cornbread and fried green tomatoes?
When I was a young boy, eating out was a treat. It was reserved for after church on special Sundays like Mother’s Day. Now a days, eating out is as common as spots on a puppy. Back in the day, we really never had a lot of choices about where to eat either. There was the meat and three down the Easley highway, hot dogs at Pete’s or the wonderful Italian restaurant Capri’s where Momma Capri would fix you the world’s best pizza pie.

Today for our family, it is an all day ritual to decide where to go. We get in the car and no one can make up their minds.  So, I am going to go into the restaurant business and get rich. I am going to name my restaurant, “I Don’t Know, Where Do You Want to Go?” Why, because, that is where everybody in my car always wants to go. And the daily special is going to be called, “I don’t know, what are you going to get?”  Make a choice, pick a dish, it ain’t rocket science or a life and death choice, it’s just a meal.

And while I am chasing this rabbit, let me ask, who renamed our meal times?  In the South it has always been breakfast, dinner (lunch if it was a sandwich) and supper. Who kicked out supper and replaced it with dinner? I want to kick them out of the South. Down here it is supper, like it says in the Good Book. In the evening when I go to the restaurant to get my meat and three veggies served with a hot roll, cornbread, a glass of sweet tea and little bowl of ‘nanner pudding, I don’t want a dinner menu, I want a supper menu. Well, I have to go; my wife is calling me to go out to supper.

“Honey, where do you want to go eat?”

“I don’t know, where do you want to go?”

“What are you going to get?”

“I don’t know, what are you going to get?”

© 2009 Joey Hancock