The admonition “you don’t believe fatmeat is greasy” is found almost exclusively among African-Americans. (Sometimes written as “fat meat is greasy” or “fat meets greasy” or “fat meets the greasy.”) The idea is apparently that if you don’t believe fatmeat is greasy, you’re someone who misses the obvious. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Don’t Believe Fatmeat is Greasy”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello.
Hi, who’s this?
This is Alicia Spriggins.
Hi, Alicia, where are you calling from?
Hi, Alicia.
I’m calling from Fort Worth, Texas.
I was calling because I would like to know. My mother would always say a phrase to me, and the phrase would be, whenever I was getting into a little bit of trouble, she would say, you don’t believe that fat meat is greasy. And I never quite got that. And I was, like, really wanting to know the origin of that. You don’t believe that fat meat is greasy.
Did she explain it to you ever?
Not really. And it was basically, like, if I was trying her is when she would say it.
Oh, okay.
Like she would tell you something and you would do the opposite?
Yes.
Okay.
And so was she getting ready to give you a punishment then if you didn’t do it?
No, she never punished me, but she would always say stuff like that. And then it would sometimes deter me from doing what I was going to do, and sometimes it would not. But this was said to me quite a lot.
Oh, so you were a naughty child.
Oh, I wouldn’t say that.
Okay.
Well, you sound good to me.
Let’s see. You don’t believe that fat meat is greasy.
Martha, do you know this?
I don’t know it personally, but I’ve read about it.
Oh.
Well, I think that the meaning of it is, as you said, Alicia, it’s like, try me. It’s like, you don’t believe that water is wet.
I know.
Just try me. But the interesting part to me is fat meat. You know that that’s a southern expression for fat back. It doesn’t just mean any old fat meat. It means that particular part of a pig on the upper back, like that really thick layer of fat. They cut it and salt it and dry it. That’s fatback. That’s also called fat meat, and so they specifically mean that part of the pig, right?
Okay.
Okay.
And did your mother grow up in Texas?
Yes, she did.
Okay.
All right. Yeah, because fat meat, referring to fatback, is almost exclusively southern, which means this expression is probably also southern.
I see a couple examples here that we can put some dates on. There’s a use in Jet Magazine from 1977. I see a pool player who calls himself Minnesota Fats after the character in the Paul Newman movie from 1968. He uses it. And then in one dictionary of slang, Jonathan Green claims that fat meat used as kind of just an interjection. Fat meat like that. So somebody would say something. They’d give you some guff or say something that contradicted you. You might say fat meat, meaning exactly what you said. You don’t believe that fat meat is greasy.
So we have some dates on this. We have a little bit of history. It’s almost certain to be Southern, and it’s African-American. I don’t see any uses in the text that seem to be from white folks.
Yeah, largely in the African-American community. So I love the way that language reflects our heritage and our roots like that. That’s great.
That’s cool. Thank you for bringing this phrase to folks’ attention. And I was glad that we were able to help you just a little bit, Alicia.
Yes, thank you very much.
Our pleasure.
Well, be good now.
I shall.
Okay.
Bye-bye.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
You don’t believe that fat meat is greasy. You can start using that with your kids.
Yeah, it’s great.
It means I can’t tell you anything, right? You don’t listen to me at all. It’s like, did you know the word gullible isn’t in the dictionary?
Oh, really?
Hold on, let me look here.
Huh.
It’s there.
Your dictionary must be broken.
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