Well, actually I have given up (non-herbal) tea, but the same principle applies to lemonade. Boil the sugar in the water for a greatly improved taste.
My sources (Dr. Hulda Clark, et al) say that artificial sugar induces diabetes and greatly worsens it. Based on her books, I gave up tea, and within a few months, the problem in my lower legs disappeared.
Alternative health rules!
I also miss hush puppies... :(
My mom grew up in the Midwest but picked up the sweet tea thing. She made it even more concentrated, which she called “syrup” and kept in a jar in the fridge. We’d pour some in a glass and fill with water and ice. Tasted great in the summer with fried green tomato sandwiches!
1) a glass bottle of ice water in the fridge;
2) iced tea on hot summer days (mint in it if available);
3) fried chicken, mashed potatoes, chicken gravy, green beans, sliced homegrown tomatoes with Vidalia onions sliced on top and a sweetened vinaigrette;
4) porch swings and the baseball game softly on the radio;
5) swimming in the lake and falling out of a tire swing into it;
6) hide and seek after dark
7) snowcones and tilt-a-whirls (not necessarily at the same time)
8) old-school street lights coming on and the sound of the metal wheels of the paper boy’s cart on the sidewalk and hearing “Pa—per! Getchur evening pa—per,” as I’d fall asleep
9) playing Three Shades of a Ghost or Twenty Questions sitting on the porch swing
10) my father playing the guitar and singing “Five Foot Two” or “The Sheik of Ara-bi” and laughter at the parodies he’d do of “The Sheik”
11) Special “Hot Cross Buns” for Lent
12) Church on Sunday mornings — dressed in our best with white gloves and a bonnet, to boot
13) washing the dirt out of the creases in the bathtub at night and that feeling when you step out of the tub — scalded and clean
14) no shoes at no time (except Sundays) during the summer and not having the stones hurt your feet when you walked
15) being gone on my bicycle from breakfast to sundown all summer long
16) okay, so maybe a Hostess Cupcake, but homemade chocolate chip cookies or hot cherry pie was so much better. How 'bout yours?
Sugar goes in first, then the tea bags; boiling water is last. And it sounds a little weak if the bags just stay in for 5 minutes. It also helps if you use about 3 one quart teabags to make a half gallon of tea.
**Freeper Kitchen Ping**
I’ve always had to specify whether I wanted sweet or unsweetened, or they leave it unsweetened but have packets on the table, I’m in North Texas/DFW.
People in the southern states have more problems with kidney stones and they usually attribute this to drinking a lot of tea. I still drink it by the gallon and you would think that since tea is mostly water it would be good at preventing kidney problems, but it contains a lot of “oxalate” which is one of the main things some kidney stones are formed of. I thought it was interesting.
I was also fascinated with "Chicken Fried Steak". I didn't know for the longest time exactly what it was - chicken or steak? I made the mistake of ordering it once to find out.
They take a perfectly good steak, dip it in batter and then fry it to death. What a waste of steak!
Nor did I know what grits were - I think I expected something like hush puppies, I don't really know what I expected - but the first time a bowl was set in front of me, I looked at the waitress and said, "This is nothing but cream of wheat!" (at least that's what it looked like). I was kind of disappointed - I guess I expected something more exotic than a bowl of mush.
Don't get me going on Turkey stuffing/dressing. The stuff I was served in the South was more like cornbread soup than the bread stuffing I grew up with in the North. I found out later its called stuffing in the North and dressing in the South.
What I missed most living in the South were simple rolls. Rolls in the North and biscuits in the South. I learned later that the reason was that yeast-raised bread was harder to do in the South because of the heat so they tend to more "quick-bread" biscuits.
While I am an "adventurous" eater - I'll try almost anything at least once, I did find myself missing real bread rolls, real bread stuffing, real iced tea and mostly (because I am from Detroit) Vernors and Faygo pop. Incidentally this is Faygo's 100th birthday. Faygo was the company that first started calling "pop" pop. The name comes from the sound when the top was popped off.
Soda can be confused with plain carbonated water - as in Whisley and Soda, or with baking soda. But pop is pop.
I'm back living in the North, although my family lives in the South. Whenever I'm down for a visit and they ask me if I want a soda, I have 2 answers:
"Yes, but could I have some flavor and sweetener with it." or
(my favorite)"No thanks, I don't plan on baking a cake today."
I love it!
Sweet Tea and Boild Peanuts !!!!! will keep you going all day long....
I had just gotten into a small town in Alabama. 3 co-workers and I were at dinner in this small local steakhouse. I asked the wiatress if they had sweet tea. There was a collective intake of breat by the other diners. Forks dropped on to plates with a clang as the waitress said “wail, of course we dooo.” Translated she said “You stupid yankee, we got nothing but sweet tea down here.”
For the record, I love sweet tea and try to support establishments in the north that serve it.
I live in the South and have for more than forty years and I can’t recall ever being in a restaurant where all they had was sweet tea. Usually they have both sweetened or unsweetened iced tea, or just unsweetened tea you add your own sweetener to.
Surely all Gentlemen south of the Mason Dixon line will understand the penalties associated with such heresy...
Tea is served iced....in a sweatin glass, on the porch, while the kids are sit around the pecan tree stabbin a 10 pound slab of ice with a fine point ice pick (kids like ta play) to pack around the ice cream churn.
Then we get to watch em argue over who gonna turn the churn.... Kids...God luvem...
bump for later drooling.
3 Luzianne large ice tea brew tea bags
1 cup sugar
1 gallon water
Remove tea from bags and place in 12 cup coffee maker and brew 12 cups. (Use paper filter)
In small cup mix sugar and at least 1 cup of Hot tea, stir till dissolved.
Pour tea, sugar mix & water into 1 gallon jug and refrigerate.
Take yesterdays sweet tea from refrigerator, pour into 24 ounce tumbler, add 6 cubes of ice, get cigar, get 22 long rifle.
Sit on back deck, load 22, sip tea, light cigar, wait for varmints.
Unsweetened tea. Blech.
Sweet tea - yum.
I have a friend here (midwest) who married a guy from NC. At their rehearsal dinner, they had these plastic jugs with some dark brown liquid in them. The jugs were marked “sweetened” and “unsweetened”. We had no idea what the stuff was. Needless to say they had a lot of it left over.