A Church on Every Corner, A Chicken in Every Pot!

Two things you can count on in the South are churches and chicken. (That doesn’t include Church’s Fried Chicken.) I believe almost every Christian denomination is represented in the Southern State where I live. Surrounding my subdivision, within a radius of about 5-7 miles are 3 Baptist Churches, a Presbyterian Church, Church of Christ, Unitarian Church, Episcopal Church, Catholic Church, Central Assembly Church, and a Methodist Church. (The rest are under construction.) In addition there are Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Shintos, Hindus, Wiccans, and Native American faiths represented. I haven’t seen too many Synagogues but we do have a beautiful Hindu Temple being built right in the middle between local businesses and a trailer park. Location is never a problem. Some churches look like warehouses. Some are elaborate and full of stained glass windows. Christian faiths, by far, make up the majority of places of worship in this state. I never give anyone directions to my home like, “turn right at the church” ‘cause there’s a church on almost every corner and two of the three entrances to my subdivision have a church on the corner. FACT: There are more churches per capita here than any other state in the Union. I believe there are more churches here than there are fast food places, grocery stores, WalMarts and car washes combined.

After church on Sunday there’s chicken for dinner (er lunch). (The three meals served in the south are: breakfast, dinner, and supper. So dinner in the south is lunch everywhere else.) Chicken is at the top of the food pyramid here. It is fried, boiled, broiled, blackened, fricasseed, stuffed, BBQed; it’s used in spaghetti sauce, soups, salads, veggies; for breakfast, dinner and supper. Chicken is inexpensive and plentiful. Southern cookbooks dedicate almost half of the book to chicken recipes. I haven’t seen a recipe for a chicken dessert yet but I might have missed it. I like chicken. I haven’t met a southerner yet that doesn’t like chicken or have a special chicken recipe handed down to each generation in the family since the Civil War. Wasn’t there a scene with a chicken in Gone With The Wind? Ahhhhh, the Civil War, but that’s a story for another day.