The Southern Cooking Hierarchy

My professor and I met today to discuss my project for her class, what courses I'm going to take next semester and in the summer, and naturally got around to talking about Thanksgiving.  She asked whether I was cooking.

She is not from the South.  I can tell by how she pronounces her "o"s.  So I schooled her in the Southern Cooking Hierarchy, in which big families often share the burden of the Thanksgiving meal...

Tier 1: Oldest Female Relatives
Yes, here in the South we are largely still clinging to 1950s gender roles, nauseating as they are.  So your top-tier relatives, usually the grandmothers and great-grandmothers, get the most important dishes because ostensibly they have had the most experience in cooking and will do the best job.  Also they walked to school in the snow barefoot uphill both ways and DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN and what-not.  They get the dishes that top the Thanksgiving marquee: turkey, dressing, really excellent desserts, and gravy.  Naturally, I took a momentary tangent at this point in the conversation to preach the gospel of gravy and how the good ones don't come in a packet and how top-tier relatives get this one because it takes a good 30 years to get good at homemade gravy.  And even then, God still won't let you get it right sometimes.

Tier 2: Next Generation of Female Relatives, aka "Everyone who turns her head when someone yells 'MOM' or sisters thereof."
The second tier of female relatives tends to consist of parents of dependent children and other adults in their same age group.  This group gets assigned side dishes - green bean casserole, sweet potato souffle, and occasionally deviled eggs if someone in this group is over 45.  Otherwise, the eggs are sent to Tier 1, because DEVILED EGGS!!

Tier 3: Awkward Semi-Adults
I fall into this category; these are the adults who have been out of their parents' homes for 5 or fewer years, give or take.  Often, this group includes women who are younger siblings or in-laws of Tier 2 people who are aged out of Tier 2 and adult children of Tier 2 people.  Tier 3 people are assigned microwaveable or canned dishes because Tiers 1 and 2 tend to suspect that Tier 3 people eat Easy Mac every night and don't understand the difference between "broiling" and "boiling" outside of the "r".  If the Tier 3 person is still in the WOO GIRL stage of life, she'll probably get assigned Coca-Cola or napkins, with a Tier 2 person at the ready to run to Kroger in case the Tier 3 girl doesn't show up at all.

Tier 4: Consumers
Children and husbands.  Because apparently (as the aforementioned 50s gender roles would suggest), men are incapable of cooking unless there's actual fire involved.

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Of course, I am only joking around.  I am really looking forward to this Thanksgiving - both my family and my husband's family are wonderful people and I love spending time with them all.

And for those of you who are curious, I got assigned rice by one group (upper-level Tier 3 with an imminent promotion) and cookies by another (Tier 2.)  We grow up so fast.