June 19, 2012
My favorite summer breakfast: sliced tomatoes with salt and pepper; fresh baked biscuits with sorghum syrup and butter. Sigh… actually I could eat that meal for breakfast-dinner-and supper all summer long without complaining.
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Tipper
Appalachia Through My Eyes – A series of photographs from my life in Southern Appalachia.
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Your breakfast looks delicious! I always crave good sorghum in the fall and water. In the summer, it’s going to be biscuits and gravy with either a tomato or fresh cantaloupe with salt and pepper. My Papa always had cantaloupe with his breakfast, if one was handy, and I feel him close by I ( shoot-I’ve been known to talk to him) when I sit down to a summer breakfast with one freshly picked from the garden.
Congratulations, Richard!
You are making me hungry. And it is breakfast time! Sure wish I had some fresh tomatoes. My garden needs to get busy with those tomatoes!!
Prayers going up for the sick husband, Barbara
Add tomato gravy or sausage gravy to that.
Tipper,
Forgot to congratulate Richard for winning the book…and I am sure Ed will enjoy it as I have…
Also, continued prayers for all the sick and their families…
Thanks for a wonderful post Tipper,
PS…Got some grape tomatoes, and tommie toes ripe…but nary a biggun’ so far…When we run out of maters, we’ll just have to hike over the mountain to Swain county, we won’t need a license to steal maters…huh Tipper!
The Blind Pig Gang needs to learn the song “Homegrown Tomatoes”-lol! Praying for our Blind Pig friend’s husband.
Mmmm… sounds delish!
Awww, you just made me so hungry, I gotta have some of that..Prayers are being sent and congrats to the winner..
I love tomatoes anyway they can be fixed. That yummy picture made me think of when we were boys and would get into the tomatoe patch and just eat them raw right off the vine. Well, one kid (as luck would have it) had suffered a terrible ordeal in that tomatoe patch one day. You see all of us little boys would go barefoot in summer and this little kid had stumped his big toe the day before. The whole end of his toe was severely wounded; there wasn’t a bit of hyde left on it. As we began to eat and enjoy those tomatoes he bit into one that was very juicy and some of the juice dripped down onto his wounded toe. As I’m sure you know, that juice is saturated with acid! On contact he screamed loud enough to be heard in the next county. There was nothing we could do for him; he thought he was gonna die and almost did. As soon as the crisis passed he went back to eating those tomatoes as we all did. They were that good!
On another note Tipper, it seems that just about everyone of your readers with their compassion for the lady’s sick husband has met the criterior mentioned in 1st. John 3:14. I feel they all have!
All that sounds good. I just eggs bacon tomatoes from the back yard
my tomatoes are the best I hsd in years. I finish hot butter biscuits and blackberry jelly
good eatin
John
My GaGa’s secret…sprinkle alittle sugar on the maters. Judith
We are all of the same mind and taste. Bacon, Ham, homegrown sausage, country eggs, homemade biscuits, gravy, maters, fried apples….mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmgood! Judith
Marilyn-I ordered your book. I get my mail at the Post Office. When I went there yesterday there was a little yellow card in the box that said to go the the window but it was closed. So I’ll probably get it today. I’ll read it and if I like it, I’ll give it to my ten year old grandson. If I don’t like it I’ll give it to him anyway. I’ll let you know.
Prayers — most definitely. Drooling over your breakfast — yes, I am.
Yum! Your post made me want to take a bite out of my laptop screen, Tipper!
Thanks to you all for your interest in CHILD OF THE MOUNTAINS. I was deeply touched by your comments. And congrats to Richard for winning the giveaway! If any of you get a chance to read my little novel, I’d love to know what you think. You can find an e-mail address from my website (www.marilynsueshank.com). My Appalachian readers are my most valued. This is your story, too!
Put that sorghum back on the shelf and reach a little higher for the sourwood honey (yes, last year’s will do fine). Swirl it together with a big pat of butter on a plate so I can swarp my biscuit through it and I’ll be a little closer to heaven.
Looks very good Tipper! Prayers for your friend and their family have been going up!!!I grew up in L.A. (lower Alabama) and had the joy of a cane mill just down the road by the river that made fresh sorghum and black strap too. Also, thanks Jim for sharing the types of tomatoes that you grow. I have been planting Atkins like my Grandfather did, but have not had the great results that he had growing them in the rich black-belt soil of West Alabama. I need some Cherokee and others that like this Blue Ridge weather and soil better. Ours should be coming off any day now.
Tipper,
That just ain’t fair! To show us
those beautiful greenhouse maders
and biscuits. My favorite morning
meal is biscuits with fresh corn
cut-off, tomatoes sliced, and half
done eggs. Gonna be another month
before I can have this. My prayers
are still going up for the sick
husband and worried wife…Ken
Mama was famous for chocolate gravy in our area as well as for her cathead biscuits. Also for her “thicknin” gravy which she made with evaporated milk–super good!!
Summer tomatoes at every meal would be great with me! I love them on a buttered biscuit with plenty of salt & pepper. One of my brothers dreams of having “all of them he can eat” & I could just about live on them alone. Also tomatoes chopped & covered heavily with gravy or tomato sandwiches…They’re delicious any way at all as well as just eaten whole with salt!
Praying that your friend’s husband is soon better.
Daddy used to mix his sorghum molasses with butter until it was smooth. So good! We never can find molasses that tastes the same. He also did this with jelly & preserves & it’s all yummy!
I will pray for
Unlike Ron, my addiction doesn’t allow me to go all winter without maters. I know a grocery store that has some that are tolerable if I take them home and let them sit and get as ripe as possible. They ain’t nothing near as good as homegrown but they curb my cravings if I close my eyes and try to picture the real thing.
I am about tomatoes like I am strawberries. It should be a crime to cook ’em. But I’m like that about other stuff too though not as bad. Dija ever eat taters raw? How bout sweet corn? You can’t beat it. Shuck it, silk it, cut off the worm end and the brown stuff they left behind and then chow down.
It looks so yummy; I have never had this type of breakfast. You have given me something to think about.
I’m with you. Once the tomatoes start coming in I could eat them 24/7. A tomato sandwich is great, but nothing beats maters and biscuits! YUM!
Oh, and I forgot to mention fried green tomatoes.
Tipper,
Biscuits, sorghum and tomatoes…yummm! Only one or two things more that I love added to the batch…here it is our growing up plate as a child:
The best homemade biscuits you ever did eat.
The best frash creamed corn, made in a large iron skillet, you ever did eat.
The biggest red mater, sliced thick, you ever saw and et..
The thickest piece of bacon, not always available, you ever hoped to eat..
The new jar of frash sorghum sittin’ on the table, with a Tablespoon stickin’ out of it..
The butter already chunked to put on the biscuits and corn, even though the corn a’ready had butter cooked in hit, you ever saw..
Then about the time the aroma would drift through the house and you could smell frash coffee that was perkin’…Daddy hollering,
“Get up breakfast is ready”!
He could make to best breakfast in the world…Shore miss those bygone days…
Thanks Tipper,
I eat fresh homegrown tomatoes all Summer with every meal, not just breakfast and of course on any sandwich. As soon as the fresh tomatoes are gone, I don’t eat another one until next year. The ones at the grocery store or that they put on your sandwiches at a rest. are like cardboard. Generally my mouth breaks out from all the tomatoes but it is worth it. Prayers said. Thank you Tipper for a wonderful daily posting to start my day.
Biscuits and sorghum syrup! And what made this so special around our house on the farm is that Daddy made the sorghum syrup! He was the “Syrup Maker” for all the other farmers in our community and beyond, sometimes turning out 3,000 gallons during “syrup-makin’ time” in the fall. If you got sorghum syrup with the Dyer label, you were sure to be getting the best it was possible for anyone to make! And not only breakfast, but dinner (noon meal) and supper (night meal), too. Syrup is good with cornbread as well as biscuits! And did you ever eat it with homemade sauerkraut?? I have! As to the tomatoes: how a good, fresh sliced tomato enhances any meal–from breakfast on. Does the rest of the world think we in Appalalchia are somewhat “backward,” and not up on the latest in eating trends? Our wonderful fare has come “full circle” and now biscuits somewhat like we had all our lives are a real treat to anyone who sinks their teeth into them!
I pray that your reader’s husband will have his medical and health needs met and will soon be on the mend again. I have two urgent needs to add to the prayer list: Johnny, a fine young man who is fighting a raging cancer, and Laura, a 28-year old with a rare but very serious liver disease. Each needs a miracle of healing from the Lord to live.
Add a slice of ripe salted cantaloupe, and it takes me right back to MAMA’s kitchen with the screen door open and the breeze causing the fly swatter hanging by the door to make time with the drippy faucet.
I will certainly be praying for your friend.All this talk about food has me hankerin for sliced maters.Cant wait for mine to come in.Everyone have a great day!
My wife and I love fresh maters, but don,t forget bout fried green maters. I could eat them anytime. A little salt and lots of pepper and some japalenos. Mmm Mmmm Mmmm.
I love fresh, home grown tomatoes on the side of biscuits and gravy.
Hi Tipper, I never had tomatoes for Breakfast but it sounds great!
Too lazy and old to make biscuits. We used to buy Butter-Me-Not Biscuits or Grands, and I haven’t had Sorghum in ages..Yummy..
I concur, the only thing I’d add is for dinner and supper substitute mayo and a slice of a Vidalia Onion for the “lasses”.
That breakfast sure does look good this morning. There is just nothing as good as fresh home grown tomatoes. I could live off bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches all summer long. I will continue praying for your reader and her husband.
Prayers will be sent.
Tomatoes for breakfast… a big yes!
One of my faves is fresh picked cucumbers, sliced pretty thick in cold buttered biscuit or on ‘butter bread’, or combine the two, tomato and cucumber…How wonderful summer tastes!
You always make my mouth water, Tipper! I can’t wait for our tomatoes to appear here. I love to halve them, top them with salt and pepper, parmesan cheese, and bits of butter and then broil them. But any way you make tomatoes…. whether naked or not…. they are the best! Wish I were at your house for breakfast!
Prayers are being sent….
That looks really good. I love all those things. I think some chocolate gravy with those hot biscuits would be wonderful. My mother made it for us young’uns and it was always a special treat. I hadn’t thought much about it until I saw a recipe you posted last year I believe. Now I’m so hungry my belly button is playing tag with my backbone! Thanks Tipper!
Prayers going up from here!
I was late getting my garden in, but hopefully I will be enjoying some homegrown tomatoes for breakfast soon!! I always have enjoyed them with bacon on a homemade biscuit, YUMMM
Keeping the family in prayers always.
I sure will take the biscuits and sorghum, but I never cared much for raw tomatoes. A slab of my grea-uncle Holt Patton’s country ham would be wonderful, too! He died in 1983 at age 101, so I guess I won’t get any more of his ham here. I’ll bet they’ve got him making it in heaven, because it was heavenly!
Tipper–It’s tough to beat maters and cathead biscuits, although in colder weather I’d have to put biscuits, country ham, redeye gravy, and eggs right there at the top.
It’s been a banner year for me thus far with maters. I took a chance that worked, although I had to wash off frost a couple of times, and put 108 plants out really early. We started getting maters in early May (Early Girl) and by May 25 had plenty of Early Girl, Lemon Boy, and Cherokee Purple. I consider the latter the finest of all when it comes to taste, although they do have big cores. We’ve already put up 50 quarts, dried a bushel or two, fed half the neighborhood, and last night I picked a half bushel as I’ve been doing every other day for some time.
There are so many ways you can use maters. Fresh with cukes and an oil-and-vingegar dressing, sliced with fresh mozzarella cheese and fresh basil, in salads, and in more ways of cooking than my mind can span.
Mind you I have to avoid the salt, but I just double up on black pepper.
Incidentally, as if 108 plants weren’t enough, I could resist adding a dozen various heirloom types and a dozen Better Boys for mid-summer, and I’ve got seedlings coming on for late summer and early fall. In short, I share your love of maters.
Jim Casada
http://www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com
Yummy! I can eat fresh tomatoes with anything at anytime of the day. I have been known to take a salt shaker to the garden and eat one right off the vine. Mine aren’t ripe yet:(
I said a prayer for your reader’s husband and will continue to pray that his medical condition improves. Prayer is the best medicine! Keep the faith.
I am anxiously waiting for our tomatoes to get ripe. Nothing like a fresh picked tomato from the garden.
Fresh homegrown tomatoes for breakfast can’t get any better! Add an egg or two and some homefried potatoes! Will definitely be saying lots of prayers.
Granny always had molasses in a big crock in the shed. I would pour all I thought I could eat in a bowl, stir in home churned butter in until it was smooth and clean the bowl with homemade biscuits. I would often have the same thing for snack before bed.
Every time I read this blog I am reminded of something wonderful. This time chocolate gravy only we called it cocoa. I never had it at home but there was an old woman “Mrs. Scott” who would make it and “pone bread”. The left overs we put in the freezer. Best popcicle ever. I sure would like to spend the night at her house again. She would let me look thru her trunk full of old linens. Perhaps that is why I enjoy collecting them now. Thank you Tipper for always reminding me.
WOW! Now that sure looks good. Call me the next time you’re doing that spread.
Congratulations to Richard on the book winning!
Continue sending good thoughts for the sick husband and the wife.
Mine is a couple of farm fresh eggs, tomatoes & biscuits. Steven my gramma used to make us chocolate gravy too, such a treat as Momma would never have condoned chocolate for breakfast.
Summer Tomatoes. Has to be in the top five for favorite things of summer.
That breakfast sounds gr3eat to me and I’ll make sure and include your friend in my prayers! CQ
I’ll have a couple of slices of that tomato please, with a couple of biscuits to put them in. And a couple more biscuits to crumble up in a bowl and about a cup of that ‘lasses syrup to pour over them. Can you bring me a bib too? I’m going to have both hands full so a napkin won’t work. Do I get seconds?
I have never had this for breakfast but it looks yummy. I wait all year for “real” tomatos for my favorite breakfast of bacon, fried potatos and sliced tomatos. It is often dinner too.
Tipper.
I remember as a child our biggest meal was breakfast. Mommy would make a large pan of cathead biscuits,fry up some thick slices of siding meat which i think is now called bacon, eggs how ever we liked them as long as our choice was scrambled and of course a large pan of gravy.On special occasions she would whip up a pot of chocolate gravy but you had to be careful when you pour it over hot biscuit not to splatter any on your forehead because your tongue would slap your brain out trying to get at it.Of course my favorite breakfast was when stawberries were in season mommy would cap and wash a large bowl, put then in the fridge with sugar and cream poured over them and to me that was pure heaven first thing of the morning. Thanks. Stephen
P.S. I am sure Ed can add a few things that i might have missed.