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I Will Never Get Used to Living Here

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This is the new decor at our university restaurant. Please note the styrofoam soup bowls and the weird receptacles for iced tea. In my country, we use such receptacles to give urine samples at the hospital.

Have you ever had a chance to drink from these glass jars? Is this some sort of a Southern tradition?

At the restaurant, I also encountered a strange food item called “hush puppies”. I hope it is named in the tradition of buffalo wings and doesn’t contain actual puppies. But to be on the safe side, I didn’t try these hush puppies.

24 responses to “I Will Never Get Used to Living Here”

  1. Pika Avatar
    Pika

    I think the styrofoam soup bowl is a worse thing than the ice tea jar. I don’t think I’d eat soup if it was served to me in a styrofoam bowl (except maybe if we were camping or at some outdoor event).
    Never had a hush puppy, but wikipedia tells me it’s a cornbread ball:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hushpuppy

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  2. Ol. Avatar
    Ol.

    I do not mind drinking from a jar, but the styrofaom bowl… Yich!

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Styrofoam-clad soup belongs to a colleague. So let’s stop persecuting me about his choices. 🙂

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  3. Evelina Anville Avatar
    Evelina Anville

    If made well, hush puppies are tasty (though unhealthy.) As Pika said, it’s essentially deep fried corn meal. If they are flvaored correctly and fried correctly, they are a sort of fun alternative to french fries. ………The glass is a Mason jar. I personally find them pretty but they are difficult to drink from. And you are right: Mason Jars are very much a Southern thing (like hush puppies!). I think Mason Jars make cute vases. 🙂

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Deep fried cornmeal! Good thing I didn’t try them because there is only this much that my blood pressure can take. I haven’t eaten French fries for 4,5 years for this reason. Nor do I miss them.

      Mason jars sound funny. 🙂

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  4. the twisted spinster Avatar
    the twisted spinster

    Hushpuppies are made from cornmeal with (I think, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any) onions, and are deep fried. We used to dip them in honey and eat them out of hand. No dog meat, or any meat at all, is involved. I have no idea why they are called “hushpuppies” unless it’s some kind of Southern joke on treats you toss at your dogs to shut them up.

    No restaurant should serve in-house food in styrofoam anything. I bought a set of cheap plastic bowls at Walmart for US$1.50. Surely they can at least get plastic — also, reusable bowls are more environmentally safe and budget-friendly.

    Re the mason jars thing: yeah, it’s some kind of Southern thing, a riff off those down-home gatherings where, presumably, ma served sweet tea in them. Actually I’ve never been to a private meal in the South where anyone used jars to serve drinks. Those jars, without handles — obviously those aren’t real jars you’re using, but mugs made to look like jars — are used here for canning. We give urine samples in plastic cups here.

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  5. David Bellamy Avatar
    David Bellamy

    I like hushpuppies very much. They should be fried in a healthy fat, such as olive oil, coconut oil, or walnut oil, I think.

    I do not think I would eat at a restaurant that served anything in styrofoam, except maybe at an airport, when I was really hungry and there was no other choice. But I suspect your university is not located at an airport.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      There is no styrofoam-place to eat for miles and miles. Except my house but I don’t have time to travel there and back between classes.

      This is the Midwest and of all the uncivilized indignities we have to tolerate around here this is the mildest.

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  6. FD Avatar
    FD

    Hushpuppies are a brand of shoes in England. Why on earth does the soup come in a styrofoam dish when you’re clearly having a sit down meal? And I don’t understand the logic of handles on something that you’d expect to stack.

    I heard the expression ‘the south is another country’ when I was in the US and right now it seems apt.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      They changed all the crockery this semester and good china soup bowls were exchanged for these styrofoam thing even though the rest of the crockery ius normal. The reason for this is a mystery for now.

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      1. Ol. Avatar
        Ol.

        Sustainability?

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  7. charlesrowley Avatar
    charlesrowley

    Hush puppies are deep-fried cornmeal balls. They are frequently served in the south with fish meals. They received their name, I believe, because they would often to thrown to dog pets to keep them quiet during the meal. I have heard that Union soldiers would throw them across enemy lines during the civil wars to quieten the starving dogs that followed the starving Confederate armies.

    They are quite tasty if eaten with vinegar, but really unhealthy.

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  8. Vanessa Sosa Avatar
    Vanessa Sosa

    I think it’s an institutional thing, my high school and college both served soup in Styrofoam bowls and that was in NJ. Probably so the cup or bowl won’t feel hot when you hold it, like in a coffee cup. And the Mason jar thing is Southern, when I was in Virginia visiting my brother he took us to this bar and grill where they had cocktails in Mason jars, it’s awkward but I drank mine with a straw. Hush puppies are awesome but not healthy at all, then again I’m going to eat fried jalapenos for dinner so who am I to speak? 😉

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Cocktails in jars??? Jeez. . .

      What’s next? Fried Snickers bars? Oh, wait. . . 🙂

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      1. the twisted spinster Avatar
        the twisted spinster

        Never, ever try to order a martini in the South. That way madness lies.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          “Never, ever try to order a martini in the South. That way madness lies.”

          – Do they actually serve martinis in these glass jars? Or straight out of buckets? 🙂 🙂

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      2. the twisted spinster Avatar
        the twisted spinster

        I’ve never dared find out, but the fact that there’s a place down here that serves cocktails in mason jars is worrying.

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      3. Pika Avatar
        Pika

        For fried Snickers or Mars bars you have to visit Scotland. 🙂

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  9. NancyP Avatar
    NancyP

    The Mason jars with handles are marketed as “redneck beer mugs” and the Mason jars with a stem are marketed as “redneck wine glasses”. These are all the rage in the cutesy mode of home “country” decor. Mason jars, of course, are used to can various preserved vegetables, fruits, and jellies, and a great many country people took pride in their home-pickled vegetables and applesauce and quince jelly and whatnot.

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  10. Ol. Avatar
    Ol.

    You always manage to take interesting pictures… now that i think about it. The contrast between styrofoam and glass makes a great composition.

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  11. sugs Avatar
    sugs

    Here in the UK hush puppies are definitely shoes, usually beige, suede lace-ups worn by old men. Deep frying would probably improve them and might just render them edible! And if anyone ever served me soup in a polystyrene bowl I would refuse to eat it, soup deserves more respect…

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      You are right. Soup deserves every respect. 🙂

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  12. N G Avatar
    N G

    I don’t think that I could ever get use to living where you live also especially when I found out today that the US army has been secretly dumping radioactive material on St. Louis for years to test chemical warfare methods.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2210415/Revealed-Army-scientists-secretly-sprayed-St-Louis-radioactive-particles-YEARS-test-chemical-warfare-technology.html

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Jesus. I’m now really worried about this machine that drives through the neighborhood every once in a while and sprays everything with a strange greenish smoky substance.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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