"Vienna Sausages, Faulkner, and Elvis"

Finally, I thought I should share this essay with the blog. The happy confluence of two of my great loves, oily weiners and southern literature and culture, is too tasty for me to keep to myself.

The article (by James Cobb, a University of Georgia history prof) mostly focuses on the great interest in southern history and culture in Europe. Similar to C. Vann Woodward's "The Burden of Southern History," Cobb suggests that many Europeans find it easier to relate to the tragedy, poverty, and defeat in southern history than the relative prosperity, accomplishment, and confidence of the North.

Cobb relates several great anecdotes. One of my favorites: "At Cambridge, a gentlemen asked if we used different U.S. history textbooks in the South. I explained that this was actually once the case, but not anymore, except that in our versions General Sherman burns down Cleveland, Ohio, and Willie Nelson is elected president." Apparently it took the Englishman a few minutes to get the joke.

But more relevant to this blog, Cobb tells about the time he was presenting his scholarly work in Vienna, Austria: "Having been raised right, I naturally took a second before my weighty presentation in Vienna to bestow an appropriate gift on my hosts—a can of Vienna sausage, which I was entirely confident they would find preferable to anything available locally. I was even kind enough to instruct them on the preferred pronunciation, at least in the minds of many Georgians, of 'Vi-eena' [rhyming with 'hyena']. As you might imagine, they were mighty impressed, with my sophisticated tastes in both music and food and with my sensitive effort to help them avoid any future embarrassment about the way they refer to their own city."

Nice. From what my dad tells me, in 1950s Northwest Arkansas they always referred to the canned meat as Vi-eena sausages too...