Saint Patrick

Today is Saint Patrick's day, we always plant our Irish potatoes on Saint patrick's day. It is said he drove all the snakes out of Ireland. I don't know if they really don't have snakes in Ireland or if that is a metaphor for bad people. Speaking of potatoes, when the potatoes would get to the size of golf balls we would gravel them. We would take a fork and push it in to the soft dirt and hook a potato. When we had enough for a meal, the potatoes were scraped with a knife to remove the skin and then rolled in corn meal and fried in lard. This is a meal fit for a king.Our people lived on potatoes, beans and corn bread.it is tradition to wear some piece of clothing the color of green on St. Pat's day, if not any one had the right to pinch you. I don't have any idea how that got started, If Saint Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland perhaps some were our ancestors. You have heard the expression, A snake in the grass.I wish I could still grow potatoes but it requires more work than I am able to preform,by the way in the ozarks most old timers say, 'maters and 'taters for tomatoes and potatoes. The tomato was a product first grown in this country, and was thought to be poison until some time in the 1800's. Potatoes were grown in Peru first and then spread over the world.regardless 'maters and 'taters are good food.my Aunt Thelma said that beans and corn bread were the perfect diet.if this is true we had a perfect diet when we were children.Daddy always had milk cows and we had milk to drink and lots of thick cream with our oat meal.I would love a bowl of oat meal with cream now.