Top Ten Southern Foods...

10. Home-grown tomatoes. If you haven't walked into a field, picked a tomato (warm to the touch from the hot summer sun), brushed off the dirt and eaten it like an apple, you really haven't ever eaten a tomato. Growing up, tomatoes made an appearance at every meal... breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

9. Watermelon. Admittedly, I've never busted one open on a rock and eaten it in the field, but my daddy did have a pocket knife that worked just fine to cut up a watermelon fresh off the vine. Mmmmmmmmm... I can smell that fresh-sliced watermelon now. It's a social food in the South. Shoot, all food is social food, but watermelon is the super-fun social food. Salt it, spit seeds, smash the rinds...there's no end to the entertainment that can come via watermelons.

8. Sweet potato pie. Sorta like pumpkin pie, only better.

7. Strawberry custard pie. With fresh, slightly over-ripe strawberries. Mmmmmm...

6. Grits. They're just perfect. And contrary to My Cousin Vinny, instant grits are just fine. No breakfast is complete without scrambled eggs, grits, sausage/bacon and grits. Biscuits are optional at breakfast. Grits are mandatory.

5. Biscuits. I have been an eyewitness and can personally verify that not all biscuits come from a cylinder. I've seen my Granny whip up a batch of homemade biscuits, bake them, and serve them for dinner. It can be done. I won't likely ever do it, but it CAN be done.

4. Home-grown cantaloupe and cucumbers. I can make myself sick eating fresh cucumbers and cantaloupe. Cantaloupe, like tomatoes, can make an appearance at any meal. Cucumbers are beyond-words plain. I'm OK with the vinegar thing, but if you're going to pickle cucumbers, just go ahead a pickle them all the way. Grape leaf cucumber pickles are my favorite of all the homemade pickles. Cucumber sandwiches are THE best: white bread, Kraft Real Mayonnaise (on both pieces), a teeny tiny bit of salt, and a freshly sliced cucumber that's been off the vine less than 4 hours. Ahhh...

3. Greens: collard, mustard, and turnip are my favorites. Some people really like Kale. I'm going to throw in cabbage because it's green and leafy too, even though it's not dark green and leafy. Some people put lots of vinegar on greens, but I like them best with the second top Southern food. And just for the record for our non-Southern friends who were totally flummoxed by the Facebook quiz going around, pot liquor is the juice left behind after you've cooked greens. You're going to have to make sure you have some, if you want to eat greens the right way, which is mixed with...

2. Cornbread. No, we don't make it in a frying pan. We always had a round cake pan we used, which worked quite nicely, thank you. Cornbread with greens and a couple of spoonfuls of pot liquor. Mmmmmm... The only time I get that anymore is when my mom cooks for us. No one around here likes greens or black-eyed peas.

1. Sweet Tea, iced - of course! Fresh-brewed and loaded with sugar. We rate all tea by the standard Granny set. If it is so sweet it sucks the water out of the rest of your body, it earns the comparison to "Granny Tea."