"I ate so much okra I slid out of bed!" (1930s? East Texas?)

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Oct 18 23:47:18 UTC 2007


At 7:36 PM -0400 10/18/07, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Stewed okry vaguely resembles red peppers, except that it's green and
>appears to be covered in a colorless mucilage trivially distinct from
>nasal mucus. It takes some getting used to, even if the eater is a
>native of East texas whose been fed it since becoming old enough to
>eat solid food, especially after the mucilaginous substance has ceased
>to be unique in the eater's experience.
>
>I don't know why, but, IMO, the stuff is as sticky as mucilage or the
>grease from pig tails, swine neckbones, pig ears, pigs' feet, or pig
>snoots and not very slick at all. Our okry was home-grown, so that may
>have had something to do with it. Different subspecies or some such.
>Who knows?
>
>-Wilson

Much ado about nothing.  I'm from New York and
I've loved okra, stewed and fried and Indian,
since I first tried 'em lo these 40 or years ago.
Took me no getting used to, any more than squid.
Now jellyfish and sea cucumber, *they* took
getting used to, and I'm not sure I'm there yet.
(Given the popularity of gumbo, I'm pretty sure
I'm not alone in my okraphilia, although I may be
a bit extreme in this--not everyone s(l)ips into
a dry okratini every night...)

LH

>
>On 10/18/07, Barry Popik <bapopik at gmail.com> wrote:
>>  ---------------------- Information from the
>>mail header -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Barry Popik <bapopik at GMAIL.COM>
>>  Subject:      "I ate so much okra I slid out of bed!" (1930s? East Texas?)
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  Anyone remember this?
>>  ...
>>  ...
>>  ...
>>
>>http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/texas/entry/i_ate_so_much_okra_i_slid_out_of_bed_or_i_couldnt_keep_my_socks_up/
>>  ...
>>  Entry from October 18, 2007
>>  "I ate so much okra I slid out of bed!" or "I couldn't keep my socks up!"
>>  Boiled okra has a reputation for being slimy. Many people survived on
>>  okra in the depression years of the 1930s, and the phrase arose: "I
>>  ate so much okra I slid out of bed!" Some people prefer the less slimy
>>  fried okra instead.
>>
>>  Roy Blount Jr.'s ode "To Okra" in the July 1976 Atlantic Monthly hints
>>  that if you eat too much okra, you'll have trouble keeping your socks
>>  up.
>>
>>
>>  Food Tale: Okra
>>  Okra
>>  (Abelmoschus esculentus)
>>  Okra, related to the hibiscus and a member of the mallow family, is
>>  native to tropical Africa or Asia--and was cultivated by the Egyptians
>>  in the 12 century AD. It slowly traveled south into the central lands
>>  of Africa; north and west to Mediterranean lands and ultimately to the
>>  Balkans; and east to the subcontinent of India.
>>
>>  It arrived in the United States in the 18th century with the slave
>>  trade, on a ship filled with Bantu tribes people. In no time at all it
>>  became a cornerstone in southern cooking, Texan cuisine, and perhaps
>>  most especially the distinctive Cajun cooking of Louisiana.
>>
>>  It still grows wild in Ethiopia and Sudan, just as it did in
>>  prehistoric times. Its plants, related to cotton, were carried to
>>  India and Egypt where they are still used in cooking oil and as a
>>  coffee substitute.
>>
>>  Today okra is used commercially as a hidden ingredient: it is the
>>  mucilage in catsup that makes it so hard to get out of the bottle.
>>
>>  Okay, here's the whole stupid "Song to Okra" by Roy Blount, Jr.:
>>  (...)
>>  Old Homer Ogletree's so high
>>  On okra he keeps lots laid by.
>>  He keeps it in a safe he locks up,
>>  He eats so much, can't keep his socks up.
>>  (Which goes to show it's no misnomer
>>  When people call him Okra Homer.
>  > Okra!
>>
>>  Texas Cooking - Grandma's Cookbook
>>  Stewed Okra and Tomatoes
>>  Okra is not well-known outside the southern states, which is
>>  understandable in that it's a hot-weather crop. Fried okra, of course,
>>  is immensely popular and has gained fame even in northern climes, but
>>  real okra lovers appreciate its flavor when it is stewed-that is,
>  > cooked slowly with a little liquid. Okra can be stewed alone or with
>>  other vegetables, most notably tomatoes. Ideally, you should have
>>  small pods of fresh okra and big, juicy tomatoes for this recipe to be
>>  at its best.
>>  (...)
>>  People try to be kind to okra by describing its texture as "silky," a
>>  euphemism, to be sure. There's no getting around it: okra, especially
>>  stewed okra is slimey. There should be another word that does it
>>  justice, but I'm afraid the English language is lacking. But I refuse
>>  to defend okra. It's delicious-so much so that I enjoy that slimey
>>  texture. There's an old one-liner about okra that goes like this: When
>>  I was a kid, I ate so much okra I couldn't keep my socks up.
>>
>>  Google Books
>>  1981 (?), Atlantic Monthly, pg. 586:
>>  'I never had nary a cent in 1932,' a cropper told me, 'and I et so
>>  much okra I slid out of bed.
>>
>>  13 November 1966, Dallas (TX) Morning News, "Tolbert's Texas" by Frank
>>  X. Tolbert, section A, pg. 29:
>>  IN OKRA, ON Sabana Creek, I was told that the village was so labeled
>>  because an early settler and postmaster named Levi McCulloch found the
>>  soil was well suited for raising the slippery vegetable, "and in the
>>  old days they ate so much okra they nearly slid out of bed."
>>
>>  20 November 1967, Dallas (TX) Morning News, "Tolbert's Texas" by Frank
>>  X. Tolbert, section D, pg. 1:
>>  But when they pass the stewed okra I say no. Slimy, slick stuff. A
>>  popular saying during the early 1930's business depression was: "I ate
>>  so much okra I nearly slid out of bed."
>>
>>  13 April 1972, Dallas (TX) Morning News, "On an Okra Recipe and
>>  Florida Road Rally" by Frank X. Tolbert, section A, pg. 17:
>>  Most cooks don't know how to prepare okra. And it comes out slimy for
>>  them. Slimy and slick. In fact there was an old East Texas saying
>>  popular during The Great Depression: "I ate so much okra I nearly slid
>>  out of bed."
>>
>>  28 June 1977, Dallas (TX) Morning News, "Tolbert's Texas" by Frank X.
>>  Tolbert, section D, pg. 3:
>>  "I ate so much okra I slid out of bed"
>>
>>  9 July 1977, Dallas (TX) Morning News "Okra Town and Some Poems
>>  Praising Okra" by Frank X. Tolbert, section D, pg. 3:
>>  MRS. HELEN ROGERS of Arlington sent me a poem about okra by Roy
>>  Blount, Jr., published in the July 1976 issue of the august Atlantic
>>  Monthly.
>>
>>  "I don't even like the stuff-okra that is," Mrs. Rogers wrote. "But in
>>  my opinion the poem on okra by Roy Blount Jr. in the Atlantic Monthly
>>  is a dilly."
>>
>>  I hope that Mr. Blount and the Atlantic Monthly don't mind if I print
>>  a few sample verses from the poem called "To Okra":
>>
>>  "Old Homer Ogletree's so high on okra he keeps lots laid by...He keeps
>>  it in a safe he locks up, he eats so much, can't keep his socks up
>>  (Which goes to show it's no misnomer when people call him Okra
>>  Homer.)"
>>
>>  17 March 1987, The Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA):
>>  "I've eaten so much okra I have to put sand in my bed to keep from
>>  slipping out."
>>
>>  Google Groups: soc.motss
>>  Newsgroups: soc.motss
>>  From: szrma... at chip.ucdavis.edu ()
>>  Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 21:47:16 GMT
>>  Local: Tues, Feb 1 1994 5:47 pm
>>  Subject: Re: Okra Winfrey (was: I *hate* beets (was Re: Glory Holes))
>>
>>  "County Comic" Jerry Clower said he ate so much "slick, slimy boiled
>>  okra" as a child that he couldn't keep his socks up.... How
>>  appetizing!
>>
>>  Google Groups: alt.2eggs.sausage.beans.tomatoes.2toast...
>>  Newsgroups: alt.2eggs.sausage.beans.tomatoes.2toast.largetea.cheerslove
>>  From: "Nancy"
>>  Date: 1998/10/03
>>  Subject: Re: WHO LOVES A FULL ENGLISH BREAKFAST???
>>
>>  BTW, have you heard the southern comedian who claims to have eaten so
>>  much okra as a child that he can't keep his socks up?
>>
>>  17 November 2003, The Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA):
>  > John A. Rooney III of Portland, Texas, says, "When I was a kid, my
>>  mother fed us so much okra that she had to throw sand in our beds to
>>  keep us from sliding out."
>>
>>  Johnny Caker's Journal
>>  2005-08-04 - 9:23 p.m.
>>  (...)
>>  At supper Mom told a joke that her grandfather loved. Did you hear
>>  about the fella who loved boiled okra so much that he ate it every
>  > day? Well, he couldn't keep his socks up! Get it? Boiled okra is
>>  slimey!
>>
>>  30 March 2006, The Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA), pg. B1:
>>  T. G. Gaylor offers this from Jerry Clower: "My mama and grandma fed
>>  me so much boiled okra that I couldn't keep my socks up."
>>
>>  Leon Hale (Houston Chronicle blog)
>>  October 03, 2006
>>  It's better if you fry it
>>  Finicky. There's a curious adjective, but I've been familiar with it a
>>  long time because when I was a kid I was often called a finicky eater.
>>
>>  I wouldn't eat boiled okra, for instance. It was slick and looked
>>  slimy and the sight of people eating the stuff gave me the fantods. Do
>>  you really like boiled okra? Ugh.
>>  (...)
>>  Comments
>>  you know what Jerry Clower said about boiled okra? "I ate so much as a
>>  kid my socks would not stay up."
>>  Posted by: barbara at October 4, 2006 05:58 AM
>>
>>  Food Network Forums
>>  Re: Really Nice, Easy Chicken and Rice
>>  Wed, 25 October 2006 13:43
>>
>>  I know I must have already brought this up, but have you heard the
>>  comedian (his name escapes me) say, "I ate so much okra as a child I
>>  couldn't keep my socks up?" Hahaha! Fried okra that I have had is just
>>  breading with a little seedy slime in it!
>>
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>>
>
>
>--
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
>                                               -Sam'l Clemens
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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