Slaw Burger, Fries and a Bottle Of…

I’ve lived in Los Angeles for half a decade now but Kentucky is still home. I’m not sure absence really makes the heart grow fonder – I mean, I didn’t take The Bluegrass State for granted when I was living there – but I have discovered that I’ve never felt more hardcore Kentuckian than I do living in So. Cal. I'm all about anything that reminds me of my roots.

This week I found myself back home for the first time in a couple of years. Besides stocking up on University of Kentucky Wildcats tee shirts (I now own four – by far the most since I was eight years old and my dad ran a clothing store that did a third of its business in UK-branded merchandise) I also took the opportunity to get reacquainted with another local favorite: Ski.

At least I always thought the citrus flavored soda was local. Everyone treated it as a homegrown product when I was a kid. The Kentucky Headhunters even gave Ski a shout out in a song called “Dumas Walker” that hit number 15 on the national charts in 1990. Turns out, though, Ski only felt local because it was bottled (at least at that time) in Greensburg, Kentucky, just down the road from were the Kentucky Headhunters and I grew up. 

Ski was actually invented by a Wisconsin dude and owned by the Double Cola Company of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Whatever. My fellow South Central Kentuckians love, love, love them some Ski and, because of that, Ski feels like home.

I have to admit, though -- and in some eyes this is shameful -- as a kid I wasn’t a big fan. I was way more into Mountain Dew and even Mellow Yellow. Ski was a distant third in the citrus flavored soda department. But, then again, what the hell did I know? I thought doing ventriloquism was a good idea.

So when I walked up on an honest-to-goodness, real-life dedicated Ski vending machine my first evening back in my hometown—

--And I noticed that it only cost sixty cents a can (obviously this was a magical soda machine that had somehow time-traveled from 1994) I had to buy one and give Ski another shot.

Guess what? Still not my thing. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to love Ski but I didn’t. I just didn't. I think it’s because the orange flavor kind of overwhelms the other citrus in the mix. I would have guessed that, for me, more orange would be a good thing. I’m a big fan of Orange Crush, for example. But Ski just isn’t orange enough to be orange soda and it’s too orange to be a Mt. Dew substitute. As a very wise man named Mister Miyagi once said, “Walk on road, hm? Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later, squish, just like grape.” Ski got squished, just like grape. And that makes me want a Grape Nehi. Think I’ll go get one. It’s not local but, then again, neither is Ski. Not really. Just don’t try to tell the locals that. Including the Kentucky honeybees. They love them some Ski.

Well, they can have it. At least they’re getting my sixty cents worth out of the deal.

Pickle What Now?

Kentucky is kind of a weird place, geographically speaking. Some people consider my home state the Midwest. Some call it the South. We started out the Civil War officially neutral but after the Confederacy tried to take us by force we said, “Screw you,” and went blue. Still, it was a house divided. My family tree actually contains a pair of brothers who were clichéd (or just plain contrary)  enough to fight for opposite sides.

I bring this up not to talk about politics but rather pickled bologna. It’s a Midwest snack that found its way down to the southern part of Kentucky where I grew up. I’ve lived in Los Angeles for five years now and haven’t seen a jar of pickled bologna in that long so when I came home to Kentucky and found some in my parents’ refrigerator I had to revisit a taste from my childhood.

I have to admit it doesn’t look that appetizing and, like all sausage, the less time spent thinking about what’s in it the better. But, when you hit it with a shot of hot sauce and chase it with a saltine the vinegary taste is exactly what this Southern/Midwestern/LA transplant boy didn’t realized he’d been missing. 

Took me right back to childhood. Not bad for an old piece of pickled rope bologna.

By-the-way, I don’t know about elsewhere but here in southern Kentucky we call this stuff “pickle dog.” I always assumed that it was because it’s kind of a pickled hotdog but, now that I think about it, maybe I’d better read that ingredient list on the jar after all.  

Peanuts + Coca-Cola = ?

There’s an old song about being country when country wasn’t cool. One of the examples of country-fried behavior the singer cites is putting peanuts in her Coke. That’s pretty country. My Kentucky-born father and Tennessee native mother both grew up country and dumping sleeves of peanuts into ice cold bottles of Coca-Cola then drink-eating the whole concoction was a fairly common snack time occurrence in their respective necks of the woods. It had been for decades before they got there.  

I grew up in Kentucky but by the time my generation came along people weren’t really peanuting their Coca-Colas much anymore so I never did it myself. Being back home for a short spell, though, has made me want to get in touch with my junk food roots so today I’m pouring peanuts into my Coke. Don’t try to stop me.

Sweet and salty are a great taste combination but why soak the peanuts? Food historian Rick McDaniel tried to look into it but found only guesses. Was it because working people without a place to wash up didn’t want to get their peanuts dirty? Maybe, but I found it tough to get the nuts into the tiny bottle neck by pouring them straight from the package. I needed to use my potentially filthy-dirty hand. 

Also, it’s easier just to pour the peanuts from the sleeve directly into your mouth so I’m guessing it wasn’t done for sanitary reasons.

McDaniel also found speculation that people put the peanuts into their Coke before putting them into their mouths because it was easier to enjoy them while driving a manual transmission car. That might be closer to accurate. Stick or automatic, though, I’m guessing that the real reason (if snacking while driving was the reason at all) was the lack of a car cup holder. Two hands, two snacks, one steering wheel. Something’s gotta give.

Whatever the actual origin of the practice (and I’m not betting any money on my cup holder theory), my ancestral people did it so I’m doing it too.

The first thing that happens when you put peanuts into a bottle of Coke is that the salt reacts with the carbonated beverage to create a satisfying fizz.

(Okay, the actual first thing that happens is you look around to make sure no one is watching you do something this odd, but you get what I mean.)

The first drink of the mixture is interesting. I’d never had chunky-style Coca-Cola before. The mouth-feel was odd but also kind of cool.

Crunching down on the floating peanuts was sort of satisfying and the taste was nice. That part is no surprise. It’s not all that different than chasing the peanuts with the Coke which I’ve done a bunch of times and the peanut/sweet combo is pretty much what you get with a PB&J or even a PB&B. 

I’m not saying I’m going to do this all the time but if I find myself with a bottle of Coke in one hand, a package of peanuts in the other and miles to go before I sleep in a car which is (inexplicably, in this day and age) severely lacking in the cup holder department, I’m definately pouring one of my snacks into the other. I actually might do it even if I don't have to. I kind of like peanuts in my Coke. Maybe the taste for it is somehow encoded in my genes.

Of course, the DNA Theory of Peanuts in Coke Love may not stand up to testing. As an experiment I asked my Kentucky/North Carolina born and raised wife to give it a try. She was not a fan.