The Blues and good eats have always gone hand-in-hand. Many a Blues house party has been enhanced by the presence of fabled cuisine. Barbecue, cornbread, collard greens, black-eyed peas, and hippopotamus. Hippopotamus?
1. My Last Meal
The prison warden promises that your execution will not take place until you eaten your last meal. What would you order? Bluesman Hurricane Harry answered the question with the wildest meal a dying man could conceive.- A-bring me two dinosaur eggs
over easy
Fried in the butter an' not too greasy
Muskees and bean, black-eyed peas
An' a little small dish of buttered bee-balm beans
I want-a zebra tooth, a tiger steak
An whole hippopotamus, well baked
2. Beans & Cornbread
Now this is what I call a food fight. The great Louis Jordon sings and swings through this epic Epicurean battle of delicious proportions. Couldn't someone get rice to settle it?- Beans grabbed cornbread by the toe
Beans said "Cornbread let me go"
Cornbread said "I'll lay you low
I’m gonna fight you, you so and so"
Meet me on the corner
met me on the corner tomorrow night
That’s what Beans said to Cornbread
you so bad, you always wanna fight
3. Diggin' My Potatoes
As with most food-oriented Blues tunes Diggin' my Potatoes isn't actually about digging up delicious tubers. The double entendre addresses the subject of a cheating woman. Though the concept of "diggin' potatoes" has long been forgotten, this tune will make you giggle next time you eat a french fry.- Now my vines is all green
'tattoos they all red
Never found a bruised one
till I caught them in my bed
You know they diggin' my potatoes
Lord, they trampin' on my vine
4. Keep on Eatin'
You got to have a plan. Country Blues Queen Memphis Minnie had a plan to keep her man, keep feeding him. It's always been easy to sensualize food with double entendres.- Every time I cook, look like you can't get enough
Fix you a pot of soup and make you drink it up
I know you're crazy about your oysters and your shrimp and crab
Take you around the corner and give you a chance to grab
So keep on a-eating
Oh, keep on a-eating
Keep on eating, baby, till you get enough
5. Grits Ain't Groceries
Little Milton introduced much of the nation to the southern delicacy and the southern colloquialism "grits ain't groceries". Originally recorded by Titus Turner, the song it a statement of total love. The Capricorn Records era Southern Rock band Wet Willie also took this song for a ride.- well, you know I love you baby
and if I don't love you baby
grits ain't groceries
eggs ain't poultry
and Mona Lisa must-a been a man.
