The real War of Northern Aggression

October 29th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

I live in an urban pocket of North Carolina- the Raleigh-Durham area. I was born in NC, went to UNC-Chapel Hill, and still live here. Now that Jesse Helms is no longer in office (and, indeed, dead) I can feel a tad prouder of my home (and it looks like we might skew blue for Obama! *crosses fingers*).

I have always had trouble identifying with the culture of “Southern.” I worry the rest of the world sees that meaning “talk funny” and “uneducated” and “racist.” For example, “proud Southerner” often brings up a vision of the rebel flag, which some see as “Southern Heritage” and others see as a symbol of a “where my slaves at?” heritage, and I don’t really get behind that mentality.

However, the one place I am a proud Southerner is when it comes to food. I love the food that is signature to the South. Vinegar-based NC barbeque, grits, sausage patties instead of links, and, yes, sweet tea.

I can’t drink caffeine anymore unless a) I’m suffering from a migraine* and I don’t want to take prescription meds that knock me out or b) I really want a coke, coffee or sweet tea and want to spin the roulette wheel and see if I can enjoy a drink without an anxiety attack. So I don’t have a constant IV of sweet tea into my veins as many do. But damn, I do love it so.

My area of the state is called the “Research Triangle” even though it consists now of more than 3 cities. Lots of good universities (UNC, NC State, Duke, and others) high tech businesses are here, and as a result, we get a lot of out of staters - northerners, namely - moving here. If you’re a fan of David Sedaris, you’ll know he moved here as a kid when IBM relocated his father. One of the local cities, Cary, is mocked for being an acronym for “Containment Area for Relocated Yankees.” It’s common to get Northerners with culture shock, even though it’s a very homogenized part of the South. Two of the biggest things they complain about are grits and sweet tea.

Like they’re forced to intake them. “I can’t stand grits; when I was a kid, I visited Durham and a grit killed my dad.”

You see, some people - like my Southern mother, for example - honestly prefer unsweet tea. My whole life I’ve seen restaurants offer both. We cater to those who do not like sweet tea. Even in my tiny rural hometown in the NC mountains you can order unsweet tea and get it. In the north, they couldn’t give a shit. When I’m visiting northern states, I get blank looks when I ask for sweet tea. They offer to bring me unsweet tea and then halfheartedly wave their hands toward the sugar on the table.

People, sugar doesn’t dissolve in cold liquid. Or it’s damn hard to make it do so. You need the water to be boiling, or you need the sugar already dissolved in a solution (Alton Brown has a great recipe for this). Adding sugar to unsweet tea is drinking unsweet tea with a bunch of crunchy sweetness at the bottom.

So where am I going with this rant about a beverage? Last night I spoke at the Raleigh Business and Professional Women monthly meeting. It was a dinner meeting, one of those prepared meals with the dessert and salad waiting for you on the table and no choices unless you told them ahead of time you’re vegetarian or allergic to nuts or something. And we all got the same thing to drink. Tea. Unsweet tea.

And that’s when I really knew the North had won. **

* This is not a caffeine addiction problem: caffeine aids the absorption of painkillers. Look at the ingredients of Excedrine migraine sometime - loads of caffeine. I can’t take that much, so my doc recommended I do my own home cocktail of tylenol, aspirin, and caffeine.

** This is not a YANKEE GO HOME post. That would make my life very lonely, as my husband is from Buffalo and many of my friends are transplants. This is just a plea for my area to not give in to unsweet tea aggression.

There Are 27 Responses So Far. »

Comment by Jon on 29 October 2008:

I also grew up in the South (the Tidewater area of Virginia) and I prefer unsweet Tea. Which leads me to my point. It is an abuse of the English language to refer to tea which has simply been brewed and not sweetened as unsweet. Unsweet has the connotation that the tea was at one time made in the correct southern way of adding the sugar when the tea is hot and then later de-sweetened. It gives me visions of a central de-sweetening plant near Richmond VA where the sweet tea is sent to be processed for those of us who are unfortunate enough to not enjoy the syrupy goodness of Southern Sweet tea. Just a silly pet peeve.
Comment by Jason R on 29 October 2008:

Alton Brown has a great recipe for everything. It’s a proven fact. Doesn’t matter if it’s deep-fried paperclips with a side of lint donuts. He will make it not only delicious, but also really really interesting.

And if people give you grief about grits, just call it polenta and tell them it’s a snooty Italian dish.* They’ll love it.

Also, how can someone not like sweet tea? Much as I love tea, unsweetened cold tea is just… ick. Unless you add easy-dissolving fake sugar, which just makes it taste even worse and gives me headaches.

Full disclosure: I think I’m technically a Southerner. Maryland IS south of the Mason-Dixon line. But I got me learned about the Civil War, not the War of Northern Agression, so draw your own conclusions.

* Culinary flame war begins below:
Comment by Derrick on 29 October 2008:

In the north, they couldn’t give a shit. When I’m visiting northern states, I get blank looks when I ask for sweet tea.

Hey, to be fair, in Pittsburgh if you order tea, it’s never *called* sweet tea but you have a like 40% chance that their binding of “tea” is “sweet” rather than not.
Comment by Rob on 29 October 2008:

I may not agree with you on politics, but I always enjoy reading your writing. I have friends in Cary who moved from NYC, but they are originally from Louisiana. I loved the AB reference. Thanks for a great post.
Comment by jim on 29 October 2008:

As one of the northerners in question, I gotta say that aint right.
Comment by Hunter Johnson on 29 October 2008:

Love it! I grew up in South Carolina, and have the same issue when I want tea here in Ohio. When I want tea, that is; usually I’m drinking water or alcohol… those taste the same here as there. And wine prices are better there.
Comment by Evan Goer on 29 October 2008:

Unsweet tea? Oh no my friend, that was just the first shot fired! The war won’t be over until we get all the South saying “soda” instead of “coke.”
Comment by Phrogie on 29 October 2008:

Funny thing you should mention the unsweet vs. sweet tea battle… I was just thinking about how New York is starting to be overrun with Southerners…

Y’see, Mc’D’s started putting “Sweet Tea” on their menus. I walked into a 7-11 a couple months ago… and lo, Arizona had something they called “Sweet Tea” in one of their huge cans. A few of the smaller, yet trendier eateries are starting to offer it now, too…

Personally, it hurts my teeth drinking the stuff. Too saturated with the sugary goodness… that, and I guess I got used to drinking my tea on the crunchy side (the sugar still has to go in… but just enough to off-set the nastiness of whatever lemon flavoring they’re using nowadays… and if I can help it, I prefer Splenda)

So yes, “we” may have won, perhaps… but your insurgents are still doing all kinds of nasty work up here to retaliate
Comment by Arkle on 29 October 2008:

We do sell sweet tea in Colorado too. It’s in a can, but still.
Comment by Mark on 29 October 2008:

I have always lived in Indiana, one of those so called “northern states”, and you will never hear me complain about grits or sweet tea. Most northerners who tell you they don’t like grits have only had the “northern” version, by which I mean pasty, tasteless instant grits. How ANYONE who has had real, southern, cooked-for-more-than-24-hours grits can say they don’t like them is beyond me.
Comment by Tracey on 29 October 2008:

Dissension in the ranks? The Unsweet Tea Party will win no battles until all “sodas” are converted to “pops” like good little soldiers…and normal people.
Comment by Eroom Tam on 29 October 2008:

I think the most obvious example of your identifying with Southern Culture is use of the word “Northerns”. What does that even mean? Anyone who lives north of where you are? That means, PA, NY state, Jersey & New England.

What about those who are to the west or northwest? Ohio? Iowa? Colorado? Are Southern Californians “Northerners”?

(Great exchange from Days of Thunder:

“Where’s your driver from?”

“Eagle Rock.”

“Is that up around Wilkesboro?”

“No. Glendale, California.”

“He’s a Yankee?”)

Heck, I’ve met Southerns for whom “Northern” = “Non-Southerner”, but they were from deeper south than NC (heck, they might think of you as not a real southern way up north in NC).

But on to tea. Come to Canada (the TRUE NORTH strong and free, by the way). Honestly, the sweetest tea you will ever taste before lapsing into a hyperglycemic coma.

Although, Canada (then British North America) did side with the Confederacy in the Civil War. Maybe it was because of tea…
Comment by Brad on 29 October 2008:

Utah is no better. Though it really is the most backwater place I’ve ever lived - including Kernersville, NC - there is no sweet tea unless you make it yerself. I once asked for sweet tea at a Ruby Tuesday’s and the waitress said, “like, Raspberry Tea?” After I got over the shock of the last vestiges of my spirit dying, I wept a single tear and asked for water.
Comment by Chris Mannix on 29 October 2008:

Soda? SODA? My good man, that beverage you refer to is called POP in this part o’ the North (Ohio).

I prefer pop to iced tea, sweet or not. And hot tea over iced tea. Hot tea with milk, like the Limeys. Mmm, hot tea!
Comment by Andrea on 29 October 2008:

I lived in the South for a total of 4 years. The things that I miss most are all food related. I can’t believe there are people out there who don’t like grits!! What’s not to like? As for the mystical de-sweetening plant near Richmond, Va, I think I lived behind it, right next to the Purina factory and down the way from RJ Reynolds.
Comment by Will S on 29 October 2008:

Enter blashphemer. I’ve lived in the Midwest, the North, and the South, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t like any kind of tea. Saves me a lot of trouble at restaurants.

Also, I say “soda.” Now we have a two-for-two in the carbonated drink wars.
Comment by Unfocused Me on 29 October 2008:

I spent a year at UNC in Chapel Hill. Sweet tea. Carolina barbeque. *Sigh.* At the end of the school year, one of my classmates hosted a pig pull. He rented a vacant lot, and when we all got there and had our enormous cups of sweet tea (or beer), a semi trailer pulled up, and when door to the trailer opened, there was a whole pig in it roasting on a spit.

That was one heck of a party. Thanks for bringing back a great memory.
Comment by Evan Goer on 29 October 2008:

Yeah, yeah, I’m a Californian, but I do know about “pop”. Fair enough, I’ll grant that Ohio is North, but…

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/308-the-pop-vs-soda-map/

if we’re looking for an official soft drink term to represent us effete Yankees, my vote is for “soda”. That covers Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, … you know, *those* guys.
Comment by OmniGeno on 29 October 2008:

I’m a californian as well, and so is my dad. But he frequently uses “soda” AND “pop”. That is, he says “soda pop.” Personally I’m a “soda” guy but I try not to drink too much of it.

Sweet tea? Unsweet tea? I never knew this invisible war was being waged.
Comment by Stephanie on 30 October 2008:

Ah, Eroom Tam, it’s not always super-sweet. It varies place to place, but I guarantee you wouldn’t ever get unsweetened tea in any restaurant, grocery store of fast food chain. I suspect the only unsweetened tea cross the border would be the kind you brew yourself.

As far as soda verses pop? Just cheat and do what we do, call it “soda pop”. Or just pop, or just soda, we’re pretty mellow.

I did work at a fishing lodge way up north in Ontario that catered primarily to Americans, and one day at breakfast one of the college girls up with her friends asked, in a (Southern? Northern? I dunno, American?) accent, if we had any “paaps”. I blinked, sure at first she was asking if we had Pabst beer, then figured it out.
Comment by Alphanitrate on 30 October 2008:

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2008/10/05/317-tea-as-a-northsouth-litmus-test/

The sweet tea line in virginia.

For me - i have only two types (iced with sugar)
and tea (with little sandwiches at grandma’s with the knitted cozy.

I did a business trip to Schumburg, Illinois and ordered iced tea - when it came to the table it must have been “unsweetened”. I drank the rest of it down- but switched to Root beer. Guess I am too CDN.
Comment by Rick in stumptown on 30 October 2008:

And whilst the beverage wars rage in the east, far to the northwest the accolytes of the mermaid know the wars are over before they even begin. The victor? Coffee, hot as hades, black as sin, smokey goodness to be denied by none!! Alton even dedicated an entire episode to the beauty of this nectar, this drink of the gods. So repent of your backward ways and embrace the caffinated dark teet of the mother goddess all ye sinners, and find your salvation!!! Bwaaaahaaahaaaa!
Comment by Brian, formerly of Wake Forest on 1 November 2008:

You make me miss my home town. I (like so many others) am a fan of your writing and podcast work, but even more than that, I’m a fan of your voice. Your voice reminds me so much of The Triangle, even when I listened to Citytalkers as I scrounged into Escapepod’s backlog. I was thrilled that there was a writer setting a story in a place I knew (I now live in Rock Hill, SC and my best friend, now roommate, lived in Charlotte).

I was always proud to live and work, even part-time in high school, near RTP as it was often touted as “the most highly-educated region in the US.” I too am a proud Southerner, and I too am not of the kind you described and it does my heart good to know of another (man, this blog really has brought out the Southern vernacular in me).

Oh, and it took me years before going to a barbecue restaurant while I was in university out west in the mountains. That western style can’t hold a candle to the vinegar base.

Mur rocks. Unquestionably, undeniably and hands-down.
Comment by Richard on 12 November 2008:

Hi. First, your cool.
Second, I agree on the tea issue and the mustard vineger barbecue. 2nd loop in Florance has good BBQ. I’m from Myrtle Beach, grad school in Atlanta, spent 5+ years in Durham working at Duke Hospital. So I know that neck of the woods. I then worked a year in Trenton, NJ. (but never again.

It is nice having a good author in the area. Thanks for writing.

Here is something to try. Not as good as the real thing but close. If the restaurant has a bar, get some simple syrup from them. It is basically 70% sugar. Use it to sweeten your unsweet tea. It is already in solution so it works just fine in iced tea. You can even make (or buy) your own simple syrup to take with you when you have to visit that place up north.

Thanks for what you do.
Comment by Bryan on 15 November 2008:

Hi Mur,

Just found your work this past week and love it.

Like some here I am from the North (Minnesota). I do, however, prefer sweet tea. Up here if you want tea sweetened you will need to ask for raspberry ice tea. If a place only offers unsweetened tea. I have my glass filled with 1/4 lemonade (I can feel my teeth rotting drinking that stuff straight) and the rest unsweetened tea.

On Grits - I has them once an likened them to Cream of Wheat made from corn. I neither liked nor disliked them as I do not know what the common condiments for them are. I suppose butter could be the answer.
Comment by Steve T on 21 November 2008:

Newby post here. I’ve listened to a lot of your work Mur and have enjoyed all of it. Thanks in bunches.

I grew up as a transplant in the south, central Florida to be specific. And to those of you who claim that Florida is not the real south, well it is when one travels twenty miles inland from any coast. In fact, twenty miles west of West Palm Beach it is actually 1927 real south.

Back during the mid seventies in my posh town of Lakeland, pizza was considered sort of an ethnic delicacy, while tacos and burritos were all but unknown at the time. However, in trade, we did have several Sambo’s Restaurants. What’s a Sambo’s? Well, it was like a Denny’s if you have seen those, but on the big sign above the building there was the face of Little Black Sambo. Unfortunately Sambo looked a little more like Al Jolson than the odd literary namesake. I haven’t seen a Sambo’s in a long time, go figure.

Forgive me all who claim love for southern cuisine, but after thirty odd years in the south, all I’ve come to understand about Down Home Country cooking is that it means fried. If it is edible, fry it. There are even plenty of fried vegetables if you need something healthy on the side. Now don’t get me wrong, a lot of the fried foods are very tasty, and a fried turkey on thanksgiving is a nice change of pace. But for the love of Kate, not everything that comes out of the water needs to be batter fried.

On the tea issue, I like sweetened tea, but not sweet tea so much. I have to cut the sweet tea with plain tea to actually taste the tea portion of the beverage. I find that iced coffee helps with headaches much more efficiently. But one has to remember to double brew the ice coffee because you don’t want that watered down taste after you add milk\creamer then melt half of the ice away. Ka-boom, that is the caffeine bomb.
Comment by Giddzilla on 22 November 2008:

Arg! Love your writing but I must disagree with your use of the term “Yankee” to describe a New Yorker. REAL Yankees are pretty much like Old Southerners, except they didn’t have slaves (they did have indentured servants and branded the foreheads of Quakers though), we are fiercely proud of our heritage. We define REAL Yankee as somebody whose family has been fishing and farming the northern three New England states since the 1600’s. Everybody else is a “flatlander”, even if your mountains are bigger than ours (we don’t care; we have maple syrup, cheddar cheese, and Ben&Jerry’s). We don’t like rich folks from NYC moving into our towns and telling us what to do any more than Southerners and resent being lumped into the same category as aforementioned hoity-toity people. However, I have sadly been exiled to the Deep South (if I go any deeper I’ll be in the bloody Gulf of Mexico) and I have succumbed to the wiles of sweet tea (still refuse to eat grits or sweet potatoes, I may want to return to New England one day).