“For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags”

— Proverbs 23:21

You know when you’ve had enough when the telemarketers are the highlight of your day. Do you want to “go jump”? Or as the old British answer to the question “What for” was “I’ll give you what for.” Don’t call FedEx, it’s not the Feds who are watching you and it’s not a federal case; just fed up.

As young farm hands “did up” the work, often before breakfast and school. Milking, cleaning stalls, checking the rabbit hollers and “have you fed the chickens yet”? Name chores today you do for anybody but your Facebook self: 45% of the people make up their own beds, 7% never. Sometimes just a little taste of something will make you change your mundane mind. A taste of sourwood honey, Sweet Tarts, a slice of lemon meringue pie, warm pecan spins, vine ripened blackberries, grasshopper Oreos, sea salt caramel chocolate or 19 ounces of sugar in one soft drink can.

The posterior part of the tongue’s surface where there is a V-shaped group of large circumvallate papillae, supplied by the glosso-pharyngeal nerve, and the tip and margins of the tongue covered with filiform and fungiform papillae are the chief localities where taste is manifested. The middle of the tongue and the surface of the palate are devoid of taste. Taste-bodies, as many as 1,760 have been counted on one papilla in the ox. They are absent in reptiles and birds. Dr. T says taste is 70% smell.

Garnished cauliflower supreme au gratin still doesn’t sound so good. Some people have a bad taste in their mouth forever. They dwell on it.

Processed fast food is made picture prefect and can be dashed to your door. Kool-Aid, biscuits, potato soup and pizza could be made at home. Eat more leftovers. Kentucky Burgoo original recipe served to French sailing crews calls for 800 pounds of lean beef, with no bones or fat attached, one dozen squirrels and 240 pounds of fat hens or roosters, potatoes, cabbage and other vegetables. Stir with a long-handled wood paddle. Appetizers, tantalizers and tidbits were “assorted relishes” in Williamsburg.

In the Deep South it was a choice of hors d’oeuvres chaud or froid. A true Southern dish will be seasoned with infinite care, cooked to tender perfection, and will frequently be rich with cream, butter and eggs. Yankees don’t get “just a pinch.” They always want to take more. It’s your old friend supply and demand. We work hard to get what we want. Sharing food is true hospitality, pineapple or not.

God bless food service workers who have kept us fed during the pandemic of days gone by. In the 1940s in town, “eating houses” were mostly around the courthouse. Charles Fore at 104 and H.E. Fore at 112 E. Council, Julia Bell at 126 N. Lee, Edwd. Dyer at 120 E. Council, Samuel Vandeford at 124 E. Council, Haywood Steele at 132½ E. Council, Jno. F. Walker at 303 E. Council and J.C. Fair on Council near the passenger depot, were all Black owned. Wouldn’t you like to eat at Spoon’s Place at 43½ Long St. in East Spencer? Menu please.

By 1955, white owned Victoria Café at 1109 E. Council, at 125 E. Council the Quick Lunch and the Open Kitchen at 123 E. Fisher joined over 60 cafes to feed the 5,000. Mr. Lash’s N.Y. Sandwich Shop at 13-133 at the corner of Council and Lee had two doors. “Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat that every one of them may take a little” (John 6:7)? All with no drive-thrus or plastic bags! We seemed to just get by with the help of two roller skating rinks, one putt-putt and one swimming pool on East Bank Street, a few well attended churches and Saturday morning movies. We did things in good taste and in good time.

Here are a few rules for good tastes:

• Don’t overcook a steak — copy Santos

• Real whipped cream will save any dessert

• Add mayonnaise to your PB&J.

• Add a pinch of sugar to a tomato sandwich

• Cook your liver mush on low heat with coconut oil to make it crunchy enough

• Himalayan sea salt is the best

• Eat at Hap’s to get fed up

Use fresh ingredients but be careful not to get “foundered” on too much of anything.

“You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord for the good that he has given you” (Deuteronomy 8:10). So, enjoy your breakfast, blueberry flapjacks, warm syrup, lots of whipped butter, drooling over the sides. Eat till you’re fed up.

Clyde is an artist in Salisbury.