(I knew you'd look! Don't say I didn't warn you!)

There is a famous-in-certain-circles Kentucky folk singer named Jean Ritchie, and she wrote a book about her family life when she was a child. (Circa the 1930's.) In it, she mentions that when her father got to an age where he had lost a great many of his teeth, his diet consisted primarily of one food: peanut butter stirred together with honey. He called it 'gray horse'. Has anyone else ever heard of this mixture being called this?

peanut butter stirred together with honey. He called it 'gray horse'. Has anyone else ever heard of this mixture being called this?

I’ve heard of a similar mixture, but I’ve never heard it called ‘gray horse’.

When I was living on my own through my high school years, my staple food was a mixture of government surplus honey, cheap peanut butter, powdered protein mix, Special K, and wheat germ, all mixed together in one big tub. I called it ‘breakfast’ and ‘dinner’. On Saturday and Sunday, I sometimes called it ‘lunch’, too.

Jean Richie has a fairly large following.not just in Kentucky. she has performed here in NY on more than one occation. i attendes one of her NY appearences, at the Museum of Natural History. i found, as i watch her and listened to her, a sort of tunnel vision developed.. its was if my ears were crowding out the space in the brain used for vision.. by the end of the concert, my vision was reduced to almost a pin prick image, and my body tingled as if electricfied, and every sound was clear and pure..

she stopped singing, the lights came on, and i was restored to 'normal' (well normal for me)

i don't often become lost in music.. but that night, with Jean Richie, i did.

Wow. Thanks, Helen. So far (her physical capabilities have been diminishing) she has come to Louisville every summer for the past 25 years to sing at Kentucky Music Weekend, and we always try to go hear her. One of my favorite stories about her is the time 'way back when her career was just getting started. She'd been invited to some huge festival, with a crowd many times the size of any she'd sung to previously. Just before her time to perform, there was a band that played big, noisy music that had the crowd clapping and stamping. She said she was a-wonderin' what on earth the crowd would think of her little old self, all by her lonesome, after an act like that, and she was frightened half to death. But she walked out on that stage and sang Amazing Grace, à capella; and according to our MC who was telling us this story, Jean's clear soprano rang out over the crowd, and there was a complete hush among them until about a minute after she'd stopped; then they about brought the place down, applauding her.