My family was from Dickson and Humphreys Counties, TN.... and our roots are Irish, English and Cherokee. So as to a "French Connection"? (c: Maybe someone with a French heritage shared it with my GGrandmother on Yellow Creek... I do know of a lady in Princeton KY that grew up eating it and her people were not from Tennessee or France... interesting to track, hu? Glenda, Thanks for passing it on......we might get to the roots of this!! <bg> I am sure chocolate was expensive and considered a luxury 75 Plus years ago...and it was a REAL treat... Cher -----Original Message----- From: Kenneth Womack <Ken-Womack@worldnet.att.net> To: DanvilleCrossing-L@rootsweb.com <DanvilleCrossing-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Friday, July 23, 1999 7:51 AM Subject: Chocolate Gravy >The following came from the Missing Links column by Rootsweb. Thought you'd >enjoy, especially Cher!! Glenda > > CHOCOLATE GRAVY AND I'LL DO SAY! > by Laura-Day Roth, M.A. <gandalf@wko.com> > >Way down in the hollers of Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, I grew up climbin' >cliffs, chasin' waterfalls, and eatin' chocolate gravy on my biscuits for >breakfast. It was a time when most people didn't have TV 'cause it was >against their religion, and those who did felt inclined to throw 'em over >cliffs during the time of the revival. It was a time when at certain times >of every day from different directions you could hear somebody gettin' hold >of the Lord as it echoed unbeknownst to them across ole Bylew. > >I grew up talkin' the talk of the country girl at heart. Now we all try to >talk like the generic anchorman on the TV, who's >really just a paper doll. But we've lost somethin' along the way when we >tried to get away from our roots, how we's raised, and who we was and are. >There's somethin' about the way we talk, the words we use, ole sayin's, how >we lived our lives -- even what we ate -- that reveals us our roots. Our >genealogy is buried --embedded -- in our language and our habits. My Uncle >Cal GIPSON, for example, always used to say "Bolix," especially if he burped >after dinner. Well, the word "Bolix" in Ireland pretty much means that you >messed up, ya made a mistake. And guess what? Ole Uncle Cal had Irish roots. > >Recently (thanks to RootsWeb friends) I made a fascinating >discovery that I have French roots on both sides of the family, the DORSEY >and the VINCENT lines. As luck would have it, I happened to be readin' Kate >Chopin's "The Awakening" and selected stories at the same time. Ms. Chopin >was a turn of the century writer who wrote often about French Americans from >bayou country, so she includes a lot of French sayin's in her conversational >pieces. Havin' a not so small imagination, I always "visualized" exactly how >the talk would sound when I came across a character in her book who said >"Dieu Sait" just before making another statement. I thought to myself "Well, >I'll do say!" All these years when my family has used that colloquial term >"I'll do say," they were very likely revealing to us their French ancestry, >but we just didn't know. By the way, "Dieu >Sait" apparently means "God knows" in French. Perhaps, the >sayin' might actually have been "Au Dieu Sait"? Probably exactly what my >ancestor said as he entered the beautiful rollin' hills of Edmonson and Hart >counties toward the dens and hollows of Mammoth Cave. > >Now, if I could just figure out where Chocolate Gravy comes >from. I know it's considered "Appalachian" but I just wonder >what secrets it holds about our roots. Of course, I been told >that the French use lots of sauces in their cookin'. Could that be it? I >just know I really like it and it's really, really >good on my Mom's homemade brickle biscuits. Well, Au Dieu Sait, > Laura Day-Roth, M.A. <gandalf@wko.com> >************************** >HUMOR: Thanks to G. David Thayer gdthayer@navicom.net>, who reports that the >author is unknown to him. > >Shooting the breeze down at the veterans hospital, a trio of >old-timers ran out of tales of their own heroic exploits and >started bragging about their ancestors. "My great-grandfather, at age 13," >one declared proudly, "was a drummer boy at Shiloh." > >"Mine," boasted another, "went down with Custer at the Battle of the Little >Big Horn." > >"I'm the only soldier in my family," confessed vet number three, "but if my >great-grandfather were living today he'd be the most famous man in the >world." > >"What'd he do?" his friends wanted to know. > >"Nothing much. But he would be 165 years old." > * * * * * >PERMISSION TO REPRINT articles from MISSING LINKS is granted PROVIDED: (a >copy of this notice appears at the end of the article. Previously published >by Julia M. Case and Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG, Missing Links: RootsWeb's >Genealogy Journal, Vol. 4, No. 30, 21 July 1999. > > > >==== DanvilleCrossing Mailing List ==== >Okay.... so I don't descend from anyone...... >Now What ???? > >