I've been called a lot of names in my lifetime, both good and bad. But I never knew until the other day that I was a "Palmettovore."
A Palmettovore - for those of you who may be thinking of some herbivorous beetle that feeds only on Palmetto Trees, or those carnivorous insects that feed only on Palmetto State tourists (we locals call them sand gnats) - is someone who attempts to eat only farm products grown and processed in South Carolina.
Apparently, the S.C. Department of Agriculture saw that too many people were eating fast food or supermarket junk and they went out and hired someone to think up that name in an effort to encourage folks to eat more locally grown food products and help South Carolina farmers.
And since I come from a long line of S.C. farmers (and Palmettovores!) I will be more than happy to help you get started on my own version of the home-grown Palmettovore diet.
Here's a typical 24-hour Palmettovore diet:
Breakfast
A Palmettovore usually starts his day with a hearty breakfast that usually includes some type of pork product such as sausage or ham that mysteriously showed up in your freezer one day, right after you told the kids that Bacon the pig had run away and wouldn't be coming back anytime soon.
Old "Bacon" is usually served up with a side order of real chicken eggs straight out the yard, or "yard eggs," as they are often called. Yard eggs taste better because you have to work hard to get them out from under that old settin' hen before she pecks you to death. Such eggs often still have a little bit of "chicken flavoring" stuck to them and have to be rinsed off thoroughly before cooking, however.
But if you're a Palmettovore on a diet, you can opt for a lighter breakfast, a meal that can include fresh sliced cucumbers from your own garden, or maybe a nice large piece of watermelon swiped from your neighbor's garden. But most self-respecting Palmettovores wouldn't be caught dead on a diet.
Lunch
Lunch is even more homegrown. One of my favorite Palmettovore lunches was Granny's famous red potato homemade French fries and yellow hamburgers.
(A yellow hamburger, by the way, is what you get when Granny put a dozen yard-egg whites in a cake recipe and dumped the leftover 12 yard-egg yolks in the hamburger meat.)
The yellow hamburger (which was raised in the pasture next door to Bacon, the pig, and answered to the name of Ferdinand) was sandwiched between two slices of homemade yeast bread and topped with a slice of homegrown tomato, with a side order of homemade French fries made from red potatoes dug that morning.
The only thing on the table that didn't come from South Carolina was that bottle of ketchup, and Granny could have made her own but she didn't want to put those nice Heinz folks out of business and hurt the economy.
Afternoon snack
After a typical Palmettovore lunch one usually takes a nap, after which it's time for a snack before you go back out to work. A Palmettovore snack can be as simple as a jelly sandwich, made with homemade muscadine grapes and, again, more of that homemade bread, or homemade ice cream or cobbler made with fresh S.C. peaches, or even boiled peanuts from that stand down the road.
Supper
Supper, now there's a meal fit for a Palmettovore. You can go for fried bream that were just swimming in a nearby river that very morning, stoneground grits made in upstate South Carolina, a side order of fresh sliced tomato, and more cucumber slices.
Or you can choose the famous Lowcountry boil, made with South Carolina shrimp, homemade sausage smoked on your own farm, red potatoes and onions and corn and even cabbage straight out your own piece of dirt, or catfish stew, made with Santee catfish, more red potatoes and onions, and a few strips of old Bacon.
And for dessert a cake or pie made from South Carolina strawberries or blackberries or blueberries, take your pick.
And then top it all off with a sip of muscadine wine on the back porch when Granny ain't looking.
So you see, getting started on that Palmettovore diet is as simple as visiting the nearest South Carolina farmer or farmers market.
And maybe investing in a larger pair of pants.