Buttermilk blues: The end is near

I had yet to recover from being subjected to the ridiculousness of a New York City diner that sold out of grits two mornings in a row when I encountered a more traumatic travesty – a Southern town that sold out of buttermilk.

Yep, that’s the truth. It may sound like a George Orwell piece of science fiction but it happened: New York City ran out of grits and a south Georgia town ran dry of buttermilk.

The end of time is surely near.

I like buttermilk. In fact, I love it. When I was growing up, a gallon of buttermilk could always be found in our refrigerator right next to the gallon of sweet milk. Incidentally, only traditional Southerners call it sweet milk. Yankees and Southerners who have gotten past their raising merely acknowledge it as milk, which is as boring as milk without chocolate or butter in it.

Anyway, given the choice, I have always taken buttermilk over sweet milk. This, I realize, puts me in a minority. Of all my contemporary friends, Karen is the only one who drinks buttermilk.

The rest of them, when buttermilk is mentioned, will make ugly faces, shake their heads violently and ask, “How in the world do you drink that disgusting stuff?”

Karen, though, said, “I especially like it with hot cornbread.”

I smiled, remembering Daddy and all the times he would come in from a long day’s work. There was always a hot, homemade supper on the stove but many times, he would say, “I’ll just have milk and bread.”

And, Mama, for once without a word, would head to the kitchen and stir him up a hot cake of fresh cornbread always baked in a seasoned cast iron skillet. Not once did I ever hear her say, “I’ve got a stove full of food. I’m not cooking anything else.”

She’d take a bowl and break the hot cornbread into pieces and drop it into the cold milk, sometimes buttermilk, sometimes sweet milk. My daddy would drop his spoon into the mixture, lift a bite to his mouth and smile as if it were the most delicious culinary experience possible.

To him, it was better – or at least just as good – as a perfectly char-broiled sirloin steak. For many in the rural South, especially those who lived through what some called the Great Depression but others cursed as Hoover Days, cornbread and milk were nothing short of manna from above.

So, I come by my love for buttermilk honestly. And, to be honest, I was afraid its popularity was dwindling and thus threatening extinction. But I shouldn’t have worried.

While on a writing retreat at a seaside cottage, I had a hankering for it, so I headed out to the store.

“Excuse me,” I said to the south Georgia grocery clerk. “Do you carry buttermilk?”

“We’re out. Sorry.”

Two more grocery stores and not one container of buttermilk to be found. All sold out. I was disappointed. Then I took heart.

With so many people buying buttermilk, cows will keep making it, stores will keep selling it and I can keep drinking it.

Life is good.