The phrase potatoes and point involves a family tradition from times of scarcity when eaters would point to an imaginary food and ask for it to be passed when there was clearly no such food to be had. Irish sources trace potatoes and point to the...
Kimberly in Harrisonburg, Virginia, grew up with a family breakfast called scorns, pieces of biscuit dough fried in a pan and served with butter. The origin is uncertain. No clear food-word evidence turns up for scorn as a dish, but the family word...
Clint from Dallas, Texas, recalls a peculiar family tradition for giving birthday presents to a child. A giver would hold a gift over the child’s head and recite: Heavy heavy hangover / Thy poor head / What do you wish this donor? The child was then...
Scottie in Dallas, Texas, says her grandmother, who was from Mississippi, used to use the term Jack Roses whenever a discussion veered off course. Her family picked up the term, and called it out whenever the course of a conversation changed...
This week, we’re going through the e-mail bag. Here’s a savory, sensuous one. It’s from Stacey in Boulder, Colorado.
worm n.— «“Everyone thinks they’re going to go to college, but we’re all back in the oil fields doing what our dads did,” says one rookie, called a “worm” in roughneck parlance. “I was going to do big things and, well, here I am.”» —“Pumping up the...