ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 22, 1996 TAG: 9603220035
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: FRIDAY SOMETHING
SOURCE: NANCY GLEINER
Bet you didn't know okra could be used to increase milk production in cows or that Wednesday is still a half-day holiday in some small Southern towns.
If you don't know whose guitar is named Lucille, what a catahoula hog dog is or what NASCAR stands for, your Southern culture rating is on the skids.
There's help. The ``Encyclopedia of Southern Culture'' and its companion quiz book, ``Yellow Dogs, Hushpuppies, and Blue Ticks Hounds,'' can educate you on every aspect of Southern culture from alligators to zydeco.
No longer will you be ignorant of the meanings of such endearing terms as ``pot likker,'' ``lubbers,'' ``glossolalia,'' ``fais-do-dos'' or ``linthead.''
You won't commit a faux pas such as eating the wrong snack with an RC Cola (better make it a Moon Pie), chugging down moonshine (a dead giveaway that you're not from here) or eating the wrong part of a pokeweed plant (it can be fatal).
The book is a great resource for transplants from the North (and some dyed-in-the-wool natives) who never knew that pork fries were made from certain reproductive parts of hogs (reportedly, they taste a little like liver, but better), or that no matter how many owners a house in the country has had, it still remains so-and-so's homeplace (handy to know when given directions such as ``turn at the twin pines and go up beyond so-and-so's homeplace'').
And if your kid tries to take the book away from you? Threaten to ``smack him upside the head.''
LENGTH: Short : 37 linesby CNB