United States, (b. 1941)
Hymn to Ham
- Though Ham was one of Noah’s sons
- (Like Japheth), I can’t see
- That Ham meant any more to him
- Than ham has meant to me.
- On Christmas Eve
- I said, “Yes ma’am,
- I do believe
- I’ll have more ham.
- I said, “Yes ma’am,
- I do believe
- I’ll have more ham.
- I said, “Yes ma’am,
- I do believe
- I’ll have more ham.
- And then after dinner my uncle said he
- Was predominantly English but part Cherokee.
- “As near as I can figure,” I said, “I am
- An eighth Scotch-Irish and seven-eighths ham.”
- Ham.
- My soul.
- I took a big hot roll,
- I put in some jam,
- And butter that melted down in with the jam,
- Which was blackberry jam,
- And a big old folded-over oozy slice of HAM . . .
- And my head swam.
- Ham!
- Hit ‘me with a hammah,
- Wham bam bam!
- What good ammah
- Without mah ham?
- Ham’s substantial, ham is fat,
- Ham is firm and sound.
- Ham’s what God was getting at
- When he made pigs so round.
- Aunt Fay’s as big as she can be —
- She weighs one hundred, she must weigh three.
- But Fay says, “Ham! Oh Lord, praise be,
- Ham has never hampered me!”
- Next to Mama and Daddy and Gram,
- We all love the family ham.
- So let’s program
- A hymn to ham,
- To appetizing, filling ham.
- (I knew a girl named Willingham.)
- And after that we’ll all go cram
- Ourselves from teeth to diaphragm
- Full of ham.
© Roy Blount, Jr.. One Fell Soup, or I’m Just a Bug on the Windshiels of Life. Atlantic Monthly Press, Little Brown & Co., 1967.
Song to Bacon
- Consumer groups have gone and taken
- Some of the savor out of bacon.
- Protein-per-penny in bacon, they say,
- Equals needles-per-square-inch of hay.
- Well, I know, after cooking all
- That’s left to eat is mighty small
- (You also get a lot of lossage
- In life, romance, and country sausage),
- And I will vote for making it cheaper,
- Wider, longer, leaner, deeper,
- But let’s not throw the baby, please,
- Out with the (visual rhyme here) grease.
- There’s nothing crumbles like bacon still,
- And I don’t think there ever will
- Be anything, whate’er you use
- For meat, that chews like bacon chews.
- And also: I wish these groups would tell
- Me whether they counted in the smell.
- The smell of it cooking’s worth $2.1O a pound.
- And howbout the sound?
© Roy Blount, Jr.. One Fell Soup, or I’m Just a Bug on the Windshiels of Life. Atlantic Monthly Press, Little Brown & Co., 1967.
Song to Pig Knuckles
- Sweet though be the pig that suckles,
- Give me one with ample knuckles.
- Doctor, broker, teacher, lawyer
- All say, “Knucks, it’s good to gnawyer.”
- When your fighting spirit buckles,
- Buck it up with meat of knuckles.
© Roy Blount, Jr.. Save Room for Pie: Food Songs and Chewy Ruminations. New York: Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2016).
Song to Barbecue Sauce
- Hot and sweet and red and greasy,
- I could eat a gallon easy:
- Barbecue sauce!
- Lay it on, hoss.
- Nothing is dross
- Under barbecue sauce.
- Brush it on chicken, slosh it on pork,
- Eat it with fingers, not with a fork.
- I could eat barbecued turtle or squash-
- I could eat tar paper cooked and awash
- In barbecue sauce.
- I’d eat Spanish moss
- With barbecue sauce.
- Hear this from Evelyn Billiken Husky,
- Formerly Evelyn B. of Sandusky:
- “Ever since locating down in the South,
- I have had barbecue sauce on my mouth.”
- Nothing can gloss
- Over barbecue sauce.
© Roy Blount, Jr.. Save Room for Pie: Food Songs and Chewy Ruminations. New York: Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2016).
Song to Grease
- I feel that I will never cease
- To hold in admiration grease.
- It’s grease makes frying things so crackly,
- During and after. Think how slackly
- Bacon lies before its grease
- Effusively secures release.
- Then that same grease protects the eggs
- From hard burnt ruin. Grease! It begs
- Comparison to that old stone
- That turned base metals gold. The on-
- Ly thing that grease won’t do with food
- Is make it evanesce once chewed.
- In fact grease lends a certain weight
- That makes it clear that you just ate
- Something solid. Something thick.
- Something like das Ding an sich.
- This firm substantiation is al-
- Lied directly with the sizzle.
- Oh when our joints refuse to function,
- When we stand in need of unction,
- Bring us two pork chops apiece
- A skillet, lots of room, and grease.
- Though Batter’s great and Fire is too,
- And so, if you can Fry, are You,
- What lubricates and crisps at once-
- That’s Grease-makes all the difference.
© Roy Blount, Jr.. Save Room for Pie: Food Songs and Chewy Ruminations. New York: Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2016).
About the Poet
Roy Blount, Jr. (b. 1941), Southern US humorist, sportswriter, novelist, poet, performer, lecturer and dramatist. Raised in Decatur, Georgia, Blount received a bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt and a master’s degree from Harvard.
Blount has been a writer and editor for Sports Illustrated (1968-1975, and a contributing editor to The Atlantic Monthly (1981-present) and a recurring guest on Minnesota Public Radio’s A Prairie Home Companion. [DES-6/03]
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