I had stopped in the little town of Canon, Colo., for dinner and, approached by a friendly server, placed my order, adding that I would like sweet tea.
Years of conditioning in Florida and other Southern states has taught me to do that as a courtesy. It saves the server from having to pose the question, "Sweeterun?"
As the July 1 deadline approaches for putting in place some form of the antismoking amendment to the Florida Constitution, "Sweeterun?" may surpass "Smokinernon?" as the most frequently asked question in Florida restaurants. (Except the ones where I can afford to eat where "Yalwanfrieswithat?" is a strong contender.)
And, unlike inquiries about your smoking preference, answering "first available," will only get you strange stares in most Florida dining establishments.
"Sweeterun," of course, is the server's way of asking if you want sweetened or unsweetened tea, and the matter is almost a political issue in Georgia, where, according to a story in the Miami Herald, legislation has been introduced that, if passed, would declare it of a "high and aggravated nature" for restaurants not to offer presweetened tea.
I say the legislation is almost an issue because my guess is that nobody with any hope of getting re-elected would even think of voting against it. Changing the state flag in Georgia is an issue. Admission of female members at the Augusta National Golf Club, where the Masters tournament is played, is an issue.
Sweet tea is more like a loyalty test.
And before you go thinking that one would have to be of at least a "high" nature to consider legislation on tea-sweetening, you have to realize that we Southerners take our sweetened tea very seriously. I spent years pointing out that I wanted unsweetened tea because I had begun drinking it that way on a diet and just got in the habit.
When a colleague pointed out at lunch one day that I was washing down meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, dressing, fried chicken and buttered rolls with unsweetened tea, it dawned on me that I might be practicing just the tiniest bit of false caloric economy, and I went back to the sweet tea of my youth.
It sort of made meals more friendly. True Southern food servers tend to feel uneasy around people who put milk and sugar on grits, don't know whether they want pulled or chopped barbecued pig, or order unsweetened tea.
The difference, for the sadly culinarily deprived, is that "sweet tea" is made by adding the sugar to the tea while it is still hot, thereby ensuring that the sugar dissolves completely.
We probably wouldn't even tolerate sugar packets on the table except that there is, as of yet, no such drink as "sweet coffee," and to make our Northern friends feel comfortable that they have something to sprinkle on their grits and milk.
And "sweet tea," is always iced, making it redundant to order "sweet iced tea"; no restaurant with an eye toward successful marketing would ever serve hot tea and deprive members or fans of our fading aristocracy of participating in the "one lump, or two?" ritual, although lumps are pretty hard to find these days.
The Herald also reports that iced tea was born at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis and probably gained popularity in the South during the years when sugar, because of its proximity to the cane fields, was cheaper than imported tea.
It quotes North Carolina author Fred Thompson as saying that copious amounts of sugar were added to stretch the amount of tea.
Thompson should know; he wrote a book about iced tea.
I told you we take it seriously.
The server, in Colorado, of course, just brought me regular iced tea and when I, forgetting where I was (or, more properly, where I wasn't), pointed out politely that I had ordered sweet tea, she informed me that there was sugar on the table.
It's okay, I'll wait. Manifest destiny may move slowly.
