On Being Southern
A Real Southern Girl Should Own an IcedTea Pitcher, and at least one Deviled Egg Plate.
If you’re in South Carolina and don’t order sweet tea with your lunch, bless your heart. It’s a sure sign you’re not from here. People divide the North and the South at the Mason-Dixon Line, but in reality, it’s divided at the sweet tea line. It’s that point where the next Formica-topped diner just a little north doesn’t have a gracious plenty of sweet tea in a glass pitcher ready to serve. Just exactly where that line is located may be a little blurred, but I sure feel sorry for those folks who live above it.
When you’re in the South, you can be sure that in barbecue joints, roadside stands, seafood huts, fancy dining rooms, diners, and dives, folks will be stirring together a few humble ingredients to produce the elixir that tastes and feels like home. Sweet tea is as basic to our way of life as loving football, Mama’s fried chicken, grits with gravy, magnolia trees, Moon Pies, Coca-Cola, and each other. For this is the land of gracious plenty where everyone is darlin’ and strangers say “hello.”
Southern folks love their iced tea and are pretty fanatical about it. Why, I’ve known friends to judge a restaurant as desirable or not based upon the way they make their sweet tea. A barbecue place without sweet tea doesn’t qualify as an authentic anything. Sweet tea, white bread, and slaw are the key ingredients for a good barbecue hut.
When we refer to sweet tea, we're talking about a liquid that’s brewed fresh each morning, stirred until all sugar has dissolved, chilled, and served by a waitress in a crisp white apron who calls you “suga.”
A cold glass of iced tea is the first thing we offer a guest in our home. It’s how we celebrate all occasions and how we make friends, family, and neighbors feel welcome. Prohibition marked the start of the iced tea era. Think about the 1930s, when ice delivery came about, and a nice cold glass of tea became as common on the South Carolina table as white linen, monogrammed napkins, cornbread, and collard greens.
Sweet tea is more than a refreshment; it’s a ritual, probably a descendant of the proper British high tea. It means it’s time to sit a spell and cool off. It’s the liquid binder between friends and family and the ice breaker between newly introduced strangers. It’s almost medicinal in importance and a Southern tradition served at any time and at any place. I’d say sweet tea is culture in a glass. Like Guinness in Ireland or ouze in Greece.
Here’s how to make it. Now, I cannot take credit for this. I was a guest at the home of the Queen of Southern cuisine, Ms. Nathalie Dupree, in Charleston when she mentioned her secret to serving fabulous iced tea.
Sweet Tea
Yields ½ gallon or 6 servings
8 cups water, divided
6 bags black tea
⅓ cup sugar or adjust to taste
In a saucepan, bring half the water to a boil. Remove from the heat and add tea bags. Allow the tea bags to steep for 10 minutes.
Remove tea bags from the water. Stir in the sugar.
Add the remaining water to the tea and chill.
Serve with ice, lemon slices, and fresh mint if desired.
Nathalie says if your tea becomes cloudy, add a little baking soda and stir.