Your comment on "cracker cooking did not help. It did not start it, but you have to not allow yourself to respond in kind.

Please sir, try to choose your words a little more carefully. We really don't need these kind of comments. Not all of we African-American men live in ghettos. Some of us even have money and manners! Some of us even have lifelong friendships with Whites and others and really don't care what color a persons skin is!

Funny thing about the word, Cracker, I have always heard that word used to describe Southerners of Celtic descent. Until recently I never knew that anyone considered it an insult. (I am part Cracker myself.)

And I don't think that Hwy meant it that way. We were just discussing odd Southern culinary habits.

I hope you don't think that I was race baiting. I was poking fun at FX for saying that dog-fighting is a "Southern Thang." But it had nothing to do with race. Pronouncing thing as "thang" is a Southern thang and is so completely independent of the speaker's race.

That comment was taken from a AAA-Florida book I read 21 years ago, as I was planning to vacation in the Kissimmee/St. Cloud, FL area of Disney World. It recommended a restaurant I try, somewhere east of the Florida Turnpike, on US-192. It was probably called "The Catfish Place".

At that place, I had some of that gator, which tasted like chicken. I am sure FX might have that.

Even Sea World of Orlando had that. It was served at Al E. Gator's restaurant, which is probably not there anymore.

Does this satisfy you any?

Old-fashioned cracker cooking

Don't you know that he is a troll, imported from Yahoo?

I apologize for my apparent ignorance on Southern culinary terms and phrases. I truly did not know of this definition of "cracker". I had only heard this word used in racial insulting format for all of my life. I really should have known better; as I have exchanged posts with both you and CF on many threads before and had never found one of either of yours to be in the category of racially insulting. Again, my apologies to you both. I hope we can continue to debate as we always have been and bury this monumental screwup on my part.
As far as these Yahoo! trolls go; Mods, Is there any way to eliminate or start banning these people? They are re-defining the whole idea of debating into starting race riots. America as a whole and we as sensible individuals do not need this.

Yup, I've had gator. In fact I'll eat anything as long as there are others eating it too. I've eaten Raccoon, squirrel rattlesnake, either cat or dog I don't remember(I was in the Philippines), chicken feet, and just about every part of the pig and cow. Needless to say, I'm not a picky eater.

That's okay, NuttyJoe. No harm done. We'll continue to debate. I enjoy it.

As for the trolls, well, that's another story.

I figured you had gator. I've had, uh, snake, too. A Phoenix, AZ, known as the "The Rustler's Rooste", restaurant serves that as an appetizer. Notice how expensive it is.

Appetizers Menu

No apologies necessary so far as I am concerned. I think that this format just lends itself to misunderstandings at times.

After all, we don't really know each other and we often come from different backgrounds and/or regions or countries. And with the written word there is no body language or facial expression to indicate the tone of a comment when there is some doubt.

So, if all is forgiven, on with the posting!