Duke’s Mixture

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is Cherie calling from Bernie, Texas.

Hi, Cherie. Welcome to the show.

Hello, Cherie.

Thank you.

Hey, Martha. Thank you. Thank you. Good to be here.

I’ve got a question for you that a quote or a phrase that my mother used to say. She lived with me for the last 15 years of her life, and she was an excellent cook. And she would volunteer to make dinner several nights a week.

Well, towards the end of the week when there would be a number of leftovers in the fridge, she would pull them out and say, we’re having a Duke’s mixture. And I’ve never heard that expression. And quite frankly, I didn’t really ever think about it until recently. She’s been gone almost six years. And I was just thinking about her the other day. And I had to laugh about Duke’s mixture. So I thought, you guys might know where that came from.

Did she use it specifically for food or did she ever use it in any other kind of situation?

No, only when she was pulling leftovers out and, you know, a lot of different leftovers.

Well, there’s a really interesting history for the term Duke’s Mixture. The original Duke’s Mixture was a kind of tobacco. It was a kind of loose tobacco that came in a little white bag with a drawstring. And it was odds and ends, sort of like the leftovers that you were talking about. But it was just odds and ends of tobacco. It wasn’t very, very high-grade tobacco. And it was a product where you would roll your own from this Duke’s mixture. And it came from the Duke family’s tobacco company. This is the same family that eventually gave millions and millions of dollars to Duke University.

Oh, my goodness.

So they were the university after them.

Yeah, yeah. So the original Duke’s Mixture was produced by this tobacco company in North Carolina. That was in the late 19th century. And by the early 20th century, you see people using the term Duke’s Mixture, often in quotation marks, to mean a mixture of or conglomeration of things. And later, granted, it’s been applied to all different kinds of things, like animals.

Yeah, so the same way we might say Heinz 57 to refer to a mixed breed mutt, people sometimes would use Duke’s Mixture. Sometimes it’s not a favorable saying. You might use it for a confused or messed up situation. I’ve also seen it being used for being dealt a bad hand at card playing. Why, this is a Duke’s Mixture you’ve dealt me here, something like that.

Interesting, interesting.

Well, of course, Mother was a good cook, so it was always a good combination. Even though it might be odds and ends. But that’s so interesting that it would come from the tobacco end of the story.

-huh.

And now it’s much more generalized. I’m not sure that anybody knows what Duke’s mixture is. But you can see pictures of those little pouches of tobacco online. But that’s a wonderful family linguistic heirloom to bring to us.

Yes, it is.

It’s a great way to remember her. And I don’t remember her using it when I was a child. But, you know, we may not have had leftovers left over when I was a kid. You know, as an adult, we had leftovers. So it is a fond way to remember her.

It really is.

Oh, that’s wonderful. We appreciate your sharing that with all of us.

Thanks, Sherry.

Oh, you bet.

Well, thank you both, Grant and Martha. I love your show. You guys take care, too.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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