The De-viled Egg

I applied to Tulane at the insistence of my counselor not really knowing anything about the university or New Orleans except for Anne Rice, gumbo and the abstract understanding of southern gentility. Boy was I in for some culture shock. This is coming from a girl that lived in 4 different continents by the age of 18.

I was put right smack in an all girls dorm on campus that included several Southern beauty queens among the eclectic variety of smart put together women. I was the bumbling hippie from Colorado who didn't wear make-up, actually went to class with my hair wet and didn't know what a deviled egg was. Oh the horror. The horror!

It was the deviled egg that started the raucous. I had the audacity to call it "de-viled" instead of deviled. After the laughter subsided, I got a crash course on "How to Mimic a Southern Lady" by my gracious beauty queen dorm-mates. Mimic mind you. You can't be a Southern lady unless you are born one. Even then, your "roots" have to be truly southern on both sides. It's why Southerners, especially New Orleanians who are their own breed of "Southern", ask you where your parents went to school, what Parish you live in, who your friends are in order to construct your blood lines and place you in that ambiguous Southern society hierarchy.

My room-mate took pity on me and as a joke offered her Southern Primer written by Maryln Schwartz. It's a gem of a book, written half in jest on the proprieties and manners of Southern ladies. With this primer and the help of my dorm-mates I figured out that my preferred silver pattern was "Towle Old Master", learned how to coif my hair with the aid of a whole can of hairspray (I'm not joking), not to chew gum in public (meh- my mother always told me that), and despite their prodding avoid Rush Week like the plague.

I love this little primer because it reminds me of those funny and endearing Southern belles and the trials and tribulations of my first year of college. Southerners hold on to their traditions as dearly as Scarlett and her Tara and I guess in the end, there is something wonderful to be said about that.