How to Speak Sheboyganese - Part II

 By Wendy Burke

   Well, fellow linguists, if you remember my blog from last week, you learned the finesse of the Sheboyganese accent. For those of you who didn’t read A Daily Dose of Decadence last Wednesday – first of all SHAME ON YOU!  J  Secondly – go back and read it as it is a prerequisite for SHEBOYGANESE II at the University of Wendy.

    Just to reiterate, Sheboygan, Wisconsin is my hometown – I was born and bred there. It’s a beautiful town of 50,000+ on the shores of Lake Michigan half-way between Milwaukee and Green Bay. From last week’s lesson we learned, Sheboyganites have a particular accent, so specific that other Wisconsinites can tell if a person is from Sheboygan.

  But, along with the patterns of speech you can hear from someone from my hometown, there are also words unique to that county.

    I had never grilled anything until I moved to Ohio. Whatever is done on a contraption fueled by charcoal or propane was called frying in Sheboygan. In addition, no respected Sheboyganite would use propane (well, not in my day!) to fry anything! We used charcoal – chunks or briquettes – soaked with starter fluid. (Or white gas if you were my neighbors, the Holler family! Love you guys!) 

    But why?...you ask! Because charcoal is a tasty substance in which to drop meat. Hell, I can’t tell you the number of blackened – and I don’t mean Emeril Lagasse-ized – bratwurst I have consumed in my life which I picked directly out of the glowing embers of the fryer (more on that word in a moment.) Just wash it off in a little butter-onion-beer juice simmering atop said fryer and you’re good to go! In the photo you will see the perfect double brat – served on a Sheboygan hardroll with brown mustard, dill slices and onion! Man, I haven’t had a really good one in some time! Wash it down with a lukewarm Kingsbury and you’re nearly in Cheesehead nirvana!

   Now you know we fry things in Sheboygan and not grill them. Well, the item full of charcoal on which the frying takes place is one of two apparatus – either a fryer or a Weber.

  A fryer is nothing special, just a round, flat-bottomed receptacle on legs, covered with a ‘grill.’

   As opposed to the fancier, Weber Cooker.

    Now you might not say there is a difference, but growing up in the Bratwurst Capital of the World, I can assure you there is – some families even had a fryer and a Weber!

    And, remember – the above fryer should also not be confused with the fryer  you can get in the meat department at your local supermarket…like The Pig in Sheboygan. If you’re still confused, that fryer would be a nice chicken for frying. (In a pan or on the fryer.)

   Have I lost you yet?  Just two more and you can go shopping in Sheboygan!

   When perusing the frozen treat section of The Pig (see above), don’t forget on a hot summer day, coolers are great eating. Now, you’re saying, why would I eat something that keeps food cold! Well, you’re not…in Sheboygan a cooler is a cold food – namely a Popsicle.

    And if you need some quick hydration…stop at a bubbler and take a nice long refreshing drink. It’s a water fountain.

  So there you have it – you can now sound and speak like a Sheboyganite!

   So much easier than advanced Latin, huh?

Wendy Burke blogs regularly for A Daily Dose of Decadence and is currently in the editing process on RESPITE, a post-WWII romance to be published soon by Decadent Publishing. She can be found on Facebook – Wendy Burke Author, at her blog site, Whatever Wendy! and lurking around the Internet – usually giving Deanna Wadsworth (http://deannawadsworth.blogspot.com) a load of crap because she truly deserves it. When not playing with the people in her head, Wendy has a fine life with a chef husband (YES – no cooking!) and two furry feline kids and a full-time job that keeps her from writing fulltime in ‘beautiful’ Toledo, Ohio. Right now, however, she’s having a helluva hankering for a double brat!

www.whateverwendy.blogspot.com

www.decadentpublishing.com