This week we celebrated the Fourth of July and TCM brought out the classic James Cagney movie, Yankee Doodle Dandy. Yankee Doodle Dandy is a weird little song about a strange young man riding a pony to town, sticking a feather in his cap and calling it macaroni, which meant a flashy dresser. But it has withstood the test of time as a patriotic song since the colonists borrowed it from the British Redcoats and taunted them with the little ditty as they won the Revolutionary War and independence from the motherland. Historically the song recounted the idea of a country bumpkin trying to fit in with the “elites,” dressing up his hat with a feather in order to pass himself off as someone better than he really was. A recent article in the New York Times presented the twisted history of the meaning of Yankee Doodle with the political correctness of our society by comparing the doodle to a homosexual. But in the South, we just want our barbeque and homemade ice cream, as we sing Yankee Doodle Dandy.
So on the fourth, after the dishes were washed and dried and the goats put away, we would sit on the front porch, eating watermelon and spitting the seeds in the front yard. The goats are an exaggeration but we did some other pretty strange things growing up in the south, which at the time, we thought were fun. We would catch lightening bugs and put them in jars, pull the stamens out of honeysuckles and eat the nectar, run behind trucks spraying DDT for mosquito control, laughing in the poisonous fumes, climb china berry trees, and chewed on sugar cane brought from the neighborhood grocery store. And we celebrated the Fourth of July with flare; it was a big deal with family gatherings, outdoor cooking, swim parties, fireworks, and band concerts. Everyone was celebrating the USA, all businesses and factories were closed in order to enjoy the big birthday bash of the summer.
Its still a big thing to patriotic Americans today but malls, grocery stores, restaurants are open so it loses some of the specialness anytime greed steps in. On this July 4th, we bought carry out barbeque pork, baked beans, potato salad, and napped after lunch. Later in the afternoon, we settled down with a glass of wine and waited in eager anticipation for our fellow board member’s world renowned homemade the ice cream. He had hinted at it several days before and the minor suggestion was taken as a promise.
There is a variety of ice cream making methods, but the major difference is with or without eggs, which translates into cooking or non-cooking. The old saying is, “Can’t eat a raw egg,” and I might add, “no matter how much sugar, heavy cream, and vanilla are thrown on top of it,” never mind the raw egg-tomato juice hangover cures consumed in the old movies. Ice cream connoisseurs may be able to tell the difference between egg custard ice cream and recipes sans eggs, probably has something to do with the size of the ice crystals during the freezing process, but the taste is phenomenal either way. The old way of freezing the ice cream was in a hand cranked-turned freezer, cooled with ice and rock salt. We would take turns at the crank handle, churning away for what seemed like hours until the delicacy was firm and ready for eating. We have electric freezers now and have for many years, but the wait and anticipation is still the same. The ice cream is as much a tradition as barbeque and potato salad and fireworks on any Fourth of July celebration. And the board member fulfilled his promise and made the ice cream. We feasted that afternoon.
Those Americans that live elsewhere can keep their Dandy Yankee Doodle; we Americans in the south have barbeque, potato salad, cold beer and homemade ice cream. It seems that our good ole US of A is in a political upheaval today and patriotism is not as prevalent as it one was. But in the south we do not believe in rioting and vandalizing stores and property, nor do we taunt hard working policemen or burn effigies of the president when we disagree with the law of the land. We salute the flag, not burn it, sing God Bless America, and firmly believe in the land the Doodles fought for 241 years ago.
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