A Buffalonian's view of the South

            While the current economic recession is an unfortunate occurrence in the lives of many families, it is a past economic downturn that bears the responsibility for family moving to North Carolina.  When the economy of Buffalo, New York began to falter in the early 1970s, General Electric closed the Buffalo plant where my grandfather worked as a chemist and transferred him to the plant in Wilmington, NC.  This move from Dervy, a Buffalo suburb, brought enormous changes to the family in terms of culture and food.

           Buffalo had been a very successful city throughout the first half of the twentieth century.  In 1901, it hosted the Pan-American exhibit and displayed the marvels the new century heralded.  The city continued to enjoy a strong economic base with fervent industrial development. The city was sustained by mainly manufacturing jobs in connection with a high level of industry prevalent throughout the city.  This helped to create a vibrant, successful community until the economic downturn of the 1970s.  During that recession, Buffalo lost most of its industry; businesses closed and factories shut their doors.  My grandfather was a chemist who worked at the General Electric plant, helping to develop transistors.  The GE plant was one of the factories that were affected by the downturn in the economy.  When the plant was closed, my grandfather was transferred to the plant in Wilmington, NC in 1972.  My mother was in college at the time, but she joined the family a few months after she graduated in 1974.

Moving to the south changed the types of food that were available to the family.  As a result of great cultural diversity, there were many opportunities for eating ethnic food in Buffalo.  The city had a very large Polish population; so Polish foods were very common.  My mom, now a semi-vegetarian, loved the kielbasa and Polish pastries.  A majority of the population was Catholic, and the traditional Catholics did abstained from meat on Fridays. As a result, the local volunteer firefighters would have fish fries on Friday evenings as fundraisers, and this was the only seafood that the family could access.  The low quality of the fish did not encourage my mother to develop a lifelong love of fish.  After moving to North Carolina, the variety of ethnic foods was no longer available, but seafood was.  Neither my mom nor myself eats seafood, so the availability of seafood is no boon.  My mom missed the large variety of food that, until very recently was not available in our area.  Last summer, we went to a deli that served roast beef on kimmelwick, a Buffalo favorite.  My mom was so excited to see this traditional Buffalo dish in North Carolina that she actually ate roast beef, a very rare occurrence.

            My mom does not have a very favorable view of the foods of the south.  Upon arriving in North Carolina, the family went to a fish camp for dinner.  There, they were served hush puppies.  Growing up on the shore of Lake Erie, my mom was familiar with mudpuppies, and she and her sisters though that there were small critters inside the fried breading.  A waitress had to break one open to show them that it was just breading, not animals.  The family was very surprised at the high prevalence of fried foods in the south.  In New York, nothing was fried, in the south everything was.  I seem to have inherited my mom’s food preferences, which are the preferences of Buffalo.  I always tell people that I am a “bad southerner” because I do not enjoy traditional southern foods.  I do not like fried foods, cooked vegetables, grits, or sweet tea; a diet more consistent with New York than North Carolina.

            Moving to the south produced vast societal changes for the family as well.  One of the main changes they experienced was race relations.  My mom attended a “central” high school, meaning it served about eight small towns.  In the late sixties, when she attended, the school was already integrated.  She estimates that the school’s population was about ten percent African American and ten percent Hispanic.  My mom cannot remember a single problem stemming from this mix of races in the school. She said “I had heard that segregation existed, but I thought it was a fairy tale” because everyone accepted the mix of ethnicities.  When my mom arrived in the south in the mid seventies, she discovered just how real that fairy tale actually was.  Upon the integration of the schools in Wilmington, riots erupted in response.  By the time the family moved to the area, the riots had recently ended, but tensions were still running high.  The third oldest sister, Elaine, was so overcome by the violence at one of the public high schools, that she transferred to a private school a few weeks into the year. 

            The culture of the south was also very different from that in the north.  In New York, the kids could catch a bus to downtown Buffalo where they could go to art museums, history museums, music venues, professional sports teams (in the 1970s the Buffalo Bills were a good team), music venues, Niagara Falls, and even Canada.  In Wilmington my mom said there was “literally nothing” to do.  She said “I felt culturally isolated” due to the limited bus service and limited opportunities for social activities.  As a result, she says they attended everything they could because there was so little to attend.

            Even though I have lived my entire life in Wilmington, North Carolina, I can still notice things about myself that are more consistent with New York, such as my food preferences.  I have only been to Buffalo two times in my life, but that city has played a great role in shaping my family, who have in turn shaped me.