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You can't out-cook a ghost. Goodness knows I have tried. I've spent hours, days, weeks, months in pursuit of the perfect biscuits, hauling ingredients from my husband's native North Carolina to our Brooklyn apartment, putting my lard-smeared hands on every text I could find and cornering octogenarian in-laws at holiday dinners. Moreover, I have rolled, beaten, patted and whispered to endless dough batches, made my own butter and buttermilk (the mention of that effort earned me a high-pitched "Sh*t, girl!” from none other than Paula Deen, and I will never get tired of telling people that), gone ice-less so as to accommodate more flour varieties in the freezer and I swear unto the heavens, I never, ever twist the biscuit cutter. Still, I come giddily bearing the star of each batch, butter-slathered and piping hot, and study my husband's face as he takes the first bite. He's appreciative and unfailingly complimentary - a Southern gentleman, after all - but deep down, I know it's never going to measure up to the ones his long-departed Memama and her housekeeper Nettie rolled out on a linen pillowcase and served to him as a child. I've learned to be okay with that. Grandmothers are canonized in Southern cooking, and while it's taken as read that your own cooking, with rare exception, will pale in comparison, willful deviation...doesn't go over so well. Eatocracy recently hosted its inaugural Secret Supper in Atlanta at Chef Linton Hopkins' Restaurant Eugene. Hopkins is a James Beard Award-nominated, fourth-generation Atlanta resident and newly sworn-in president of the Southern Foodways Alliance, a group founded to "document, study, and celebrate the diverse food cultures of the changing American South." Chef Hopkins and his wife Gina not only work closely with the farmers from whom they source the restaurant's food - they are founding partners of the Peachtree Road Farmers Market. Gina sits on the board of Georgia Organics, their hospitality director Judith Winfrey is the co-operator of Love Is Love Farm, and Chef Hopkins has been instrumental in getting Georgia farmers, like Crystal Organic Farms, to reclaim true heritage crops like pimentos, the growth and production of which had been taken by large agricultural companies. This reverence for the terroir and culture of the region's cooking was evidenced in every aspect of the menu - from artfully crafted and sourced country ham, green tomatoes pickled just in time to snatch them back from an early frost, playful riffs on Southern standards like pimento cheese, pickled shrimp and soulful creamy heirloom grits to lovingly slow-cooked ribs, quick-cured trout plucked from a nearby river mere hours before, carrots just forty minutes out of the ground, borne to the dinner by a farmer in attendance at the dinner, and a sweet send-off with cake made from sorghum - a Southern crop Hopkins is doing his best to evangelize and revive. It was, by the accounts of all in attendance, a love letter to the cooks, farmers and soul of the South. Attendee, Atlanta food writer Christiane Lauterbach found resonance in the menu’s message on the identity of Southern food. “What we want is beautifully sourced ingredients – not stuff that you just get from the grocery store. Stuff that – you know the farmer, you know the cow, you know the pig. That evolution is very meaningful.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution food writer and chief dining critic John Kessler agreed. “Bacon is our calling card. Everybody likes bacon, but there’s so much more to Southern food than that. What do they say in Italian? Cucina povere – poor people’s cooking. What Southern food is, is that. It is food that is very close to the agrarian tradition. It’s close to the earth.” And yet...
Commenters on the live blog of the event took grave offense to the notion that this would be presented as Southern food. It is at odds with their notion of what the cuisine has always meant to them and their family, and respondents to our accompanying stories Reclaiming the soul of Southern food and How well do you know Southern food? accuse chefs like Hopkins, Charleston's Sean Brock and Roanoake's Josh Smith of cultural and culinary treason for their reverence of ingredients over dishes and their seeming disloyalty to the specter of the Southern grandmother. That's why we are hosting the Secret Suppers. While we cannot (yet) physically feed everyone, we believe passionately and firmly that the best discussion takes place around a dinner table. Food fuels ideas, feeds minds and well as stomachs and is a catalyst for passionate dialogue about culture, economics, race, gender and, yes, the dishes themselves. As attendee, chef and author Virginia Willis says food, “will allow us to connect what we’re putting in our mouths with what is happening around the world.” We want to hear from you - pull up a chair, take your place at the table and share your thoughts on the state of Southern cooking in the comments below and we'll share some of the most thoughtful and provocative responses in an upcoming post. Type with your mouth full - maybe even have a biscuit. Read more about the Eatocracy Secret Suppers and see all the dishes that were served |
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I"m from the south and i assure you there is not talking after a good helpin of souther food because we're all semi comatose
I grew up in the northeast, and now live in North Carolina, while both cuisines have their strengths-I love them both. One thing I have learned from Native Southerners is the history of a lot of the food, the importance of family and Sunday Dinners, and go to your local farm stand or neighbor and cook what is in season. In Maine you get to know your local fisherman, butcher and try to eat local as well. Believe me southern food is no more fattening that northern or Mid western. I just have to say the popovers, Lobster and clam chowder are better up north, but in the south east carolina barbeque, buscuits and the plithera of local veggies cooked everyway cant be beat. Enjoy and celebrate that in this great country we have such variety.
LAST!!!!!
Well, I'm a pure-d hybrid. Mom's family is from several different southern states (I currently live in VA) & Dad's family emigrated from Italy. I've had the best of the culinary world for over 50 years! And there are surprising similarities between the 2 cuisines. Polenta & grits, for example. I would say, oddly enough, the greatest difference I noticed growing up was that my Italian grandma served far smaller portions of meat than my Mom & Aunt. Also the number of vegetable dishes were about the same, but the "southern" ones were often pickled or cooked with a little pork. One uncle who was born in Tennesse had never tasted real Italian food until he married into the family & he loved it. So when we came for a visit, Mom would bring him lasagne & meatballs & gravy for dinner & he'd make us scrapple & grits & eggs for breakfast...it was great. Both served dandeliion salad, but Mom made a hot dressing & Grandma used a cold vinaigrette w/garlic. Both used a lot of beans & soups – poor folks food, if you will. Pasta Fagioli vs. Hoppin' John. Both used a lot of fish, although the Southern folks were more inclined to fry it than bake it. Bacon vs. Guanciale or Pancetta. Chicken & dumplings, Italian Wedding Soup. Both served real food with real love. Both families worked hard physically & were careful with the pennies. Yes, we may need to lower fat & meat intake, but I'm tired of this "fear of food" rampant in the country. Taste the love, add lots of vegetables, eat locally grown (both grew much of their own) & taste the love. Expensive ingredients almost never found their way into our meals:)
Being raised in N.C. my whole life, I know southern food. I know that when supplies are low, I can still make something wonderful. Biscuits aren't just for supper. They are also dessert. Open a hot biscuit and pour Black Strap Molasses onto it. Oh my goodness. My Grandmother would use leftover biscuits for her onions. She would cut a thick slice of onion and put it between the biscuits, wrap it in wax paper and go fishing. Meat was something that we had, although not always a lot of....hence the large variety of other things. Usually several starches and vegetables, bread and sliced tomatoes and spring onions. And dessert. I love my southerness and my food. Even my Yankee husband can't resist a bowl of butter beans cooked with a thick slab of fatback, porkchops and collard greens cooked with fatback too. Along with chow-chow and a bottle of hot vinegar with Tabasco peppers in it to shake on top of the greens. And of course cornbread made in a cast-iron skillet.
Mercy! Fried catfish, fried anything that one could get, fatback, pig brains and eggs, black-eyed peas, ham hocks, greens, green onions, pulled bbq pork, pickled pig's feet .....any part of the pig that the "white boss" didn't eat, and, of course, biscuits that would melt in one's mouth. Gravy? You betcha! Sausage-based white gravy ....the best.
This "food" is what my family ate during the Great Depression ....when the family could get it. School lunch? A cold baked potato and a tomato from the vine carried in a one-gallon paint can. Assume we were poor, but so was everyone else.
Don't know where the people in the video came up with the "southern food" thing.
"The biggest portions I have ever been served in my life were in Baltimore, Maryland. We went to a seafood restaurant and the fish covered the entire plate; we went to a "normal" restaurant and received 1/2 pound hamburgers and enough french fries for three people. It was so extreme I started calling it "City of Enormous Portions." I take this as a restaurant thing, though, not a Southern thing. I think you have to be a resident to know what southern food is, and I'm not."
Sandy – I don't care where the Mason/Dixon Line is... but being from the SOUTH, I know that any true southerner would be offended to hear that some people consider Baltimore, Maryland to be in the SOUTH... It is more acquainted with states further North, like Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey!
Southern Food is wonderful. It is the stereotypical cuisine that everyone thinks of. buttermilk biscuits with white sausage gravy, country fried steak, collard greens with buttery cornbread, fried green tomatoes and deep fried chicken and tea so sweet it has the texture of maple syrup (not literally). You will not find the complex flavors that are available in Thai or asian cuisine. Sure some Southern cooks have ways of putting their little twist on recipes offering a suttle level of complexity but the flavors for the most part are very simple with no surprises but that is exactly what makes it so good. Good old fashioned comfort food. As good as it tastes it is also incredibly bad for you. This is why the south has the highest obesity rates in the nation. They just can't resist the food. It is something that should be eaten sparingly as a treat only occasionally as it is very high in fat, sugar and sodium. Even the vegetables are prepared in such a way that they are not healthy for you. Like sweet potatoes for instance we load up with brown sugar and butter and put marshmellows on top. A great flavor but deadly if eaten often over time.
Start off with homemade biscuits, with a pat of butter and some sorghum molasses, then: pinto beans, turnip greens, pan fried okra, a wedge of cornbread (no sugar in it!), a slice of onion, all seasoned with peppers in vinegar sauce, and a big ol' glass of iced sweet tea, lemon optional... finally, have a slice of sweet potato or pecan pie... Lawdy!
I'm a native Southerner, and my dad's people settled in northeast Mississippi in the 1830s. My mom's people were from middle south Tennessee since way back as well... I think I know a little about southern cooking... it's about family, friendship, tradition, memories, comfort, and love... it covers a vast array of foods, from the classic pork barbeque of Memphis, to the classic Cajun and Creole dishes of Louisiana, to the seafood dishes of the Low Country, to every potluck dinner in between... Food is the soul of the South, and Grandma with her wooden spoon is it's architect...
One thing I miss very much when I leave the South is sweet tea.
Quit fretting and get on with cooking. You-all are thinking this to death. Either you can cook, or you can't (which, if you're Northern, is most likely the case), but either way, good food doesn't need all this categorization, documentation, or disputation.
Well, goodness gracious. Bless all your little hearts!
The truth about southern food is quite simple: What is cooked and how it is cooked is not nearly as important as the love and tradition that stand behind the fact that it is cooked with care and tenderness to feed the people one cares for.
My mother was never the world's greatest cook, and she was raised on a small farm just outside the itty bitty town of Goodwater, Alabama (for those of you familiar with the area, it's situated a little north of being smack dab in the middle of Sylacauga and Alexander City). From a culinary standpoint, my mama never made the world's "best" fried chicken, and she never mastered (or tried, to my knowledge) to make any type of biscuit other than canned. Love for her family added just the right seasoning to her food, though, and I'd still prefer her cooking to anything I've ever been served in any of those four and five star restaurants I've been to.
There's something about a southern cook – even when the flour on the fried porkchops is burnt, you can still taste the love that put it there in the first place. After all, isn't that what it's all about?
There is no 'one' Southern cuisine – and that's one of the great things about Southern cuisine. Cross-cultural, influenced by terroir and tradition, and it's all good. You wouldn't find the same foods on the table in western North Carolina, the Low Country, the Florida panhandle, the urban Atlantic coast, rural Alabama or New Orleans. But it's all Southern, and it's all from tradition passed down through the generations.
My mom, and everyone else in my family (except for me – I was born in tennessee), are from ohio. But my mom's mastered the art of southern cooking. Her biscuits, creamed turkey after thanksgiving, fried chicken... Yum!
There is no master Southern Food list. You are never going to get everyone to agree on what is considered Southern. Yes, there are similarities from region to region but you kind of also have pockets of different styles and ways to cook things. Just like there are many different ways to cook every other type of food in the world (Italian, Mexican, Etc). My grandma may do things differently than someone else's grandma.
Most recipes are generally passed down from generation to generation and the idea of the Southern Grandma (and what us younger cooks spend years trying to work toward) or some maternal vision is often a big part of that although anything on the grill is oftentimes done by the more masculine of us (although that is still not hard set in stone).
Not all of us get everything straight from the farm either. That is obviously optimal but oftentimes is not done especially by those of us who don't live on a farm (and shock shock there are plenty of us who don't).
Ultimately you cannot call something Southern if you don't involve some Southern native cooks and you don't have recipes with a history associated to them. It's the people and the passion and the history. The recipes that have been verified and loved by many over the years. That my friend is what Southern cooking really is.
Also, you can never truly duplicate what someone else's grandma has made. That's like having someone copy a Picasso. It looks the same but it isn't done by Picasso. That doesn't mean you can't be a good cook in your own right though. Grandma didn't become the ultimate cook overnight. It took many years of practice. Therefore your efforts aren't wasted. You will grow into your own best cook and someday your kids will be telling their spouses, "You can't make it like my grandma"
Deep-fried incest and Yankee hating racists, that's the best southern cooking! Woo hoo!
The average IQ drops by 50% and the average weight increases by the same 50% when you cross the Mason-Dixon line!
Now go enjoy the time with your new cousin-bride!
That would be like going to the North and finding the awful things about the North and saying that everyone who lives there is like that. Not every person is nice no matter where you live and I doubt South has a larger percentage of crappy behavior than the North does.
I think the vehemence of the disagreements is actually a result of non-agreement of what is southern food. Those of you who are saying southern food is all fried, and mac and cheese, and a recipe for obesity – this is a socio-economic anti cuisine found all over the country.
Actually, real southern food is very modern for today's trends. It is vegetable and grain intense, and very light on meat and dairy. It is an agrarian area, with large areas of low income = meats used as seasonings, or once or twice a week special dinners. Red meat is a rarity. Sustainably caught seafood is important. There is an emphasis on local, seasonal ingredients and preparation is minimal and clean. Every part of an animal is used, when they are eaten.
I grew up in South Carolina. I had mac and cheese maybe once growing up. And some of my favorite dinners were in the summer – field peas, sliced tomatoes, corn on the cob, salad. Done.
I lived in Arkansas during my university years (as a foreign student) in the early 80s and man did I enjoyed the food down there. Now living in Canada, I sure missed the deep fried catfish (man, did they have that down to a science in terms of oil temperature and frying time), I sure love their gravy and biscuits, okra was another favorite but my favorite was the fried chicken. Tried as I could, I wasn't able to get excited about grits, LOL!
As Christmas approaches, I can't help but go back in time to my Aunt Lela's kitchen in Kenly, NC watching her whip up a batch of homemade biscuits in the same large wooden bowl used by her mother over 100 years ago (wish I knew where that bowl is today). Yes, lard was involved but they melted in your mouth and you would slap your granny to get one. Also, my husband and I still argue over the best way to cook collards. He grew up eating them just cut up while I like my chopped ultra fine (keep in mind that they are sweeter after a nice frost). Although most of our food did come from the earth (green beans, limas, black eyed peas, corn, tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peaches etc.) I don't remember using mushrooms. They were considered fancy or something you killed on the lawn. OK, all this talk of food, now I am hungry.
My grandmother (from Virginia) made the best, melt-in-your-mouth rolls, which she called “light bread.” It was delicious because she would mix everything and fashion the rolls, placing a damp towel over the pans. The yeast would do its job overnight and Sunday morning, the rolls were popped in the oven. The family could barely wait for the piping hot rolls.
Long ago, spices and condiments were not available and bacon drippings and salt made Southern food tastier. Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and Louisiana have a lot in common. Virginia is known for its Smithfield ham, apples, peanuts. NC & SC have barbecue, rice and make a dish called Hoppin’ John. Georgia has its peaches, pecans, peanuts and onions. Louisiana ( I think the best food) has crawfish, crab, oysters, and shrimp. Mississippi–catfish.
Rice, grits, okra, tomatoes, corn, chicken, greens are what poor people had access to something right out of the garden, from the chicken coop or the pen down by the barn.
The reason Southern cooking looks good to restaurant owners today, is that it is cheap, ingredients are not exotic, easy to obtain.
But when all is said and done, Southern cooking is about ritual and family. Everything tastes better when you share it with loved ones. It’s up to us to tell family members to push back from the table–one helping is enough.
(Living in NC)
Amen to that JW.
native, 30 year old californian here. it wasn't until a few years ago that i had grits for the first time. i hadn't even known what they were before. tragic! since then, i have expanded my appreciation of southern/soul food and cooking courage, and treat my new cast-iron skillet with motherly love! can't wait to learn more! :)
I spent 2 months in Louisiana this past summer working on the Deepwater Horizon. I gained about 15 pounds eating at places like Waffle House and Cracker Barrel. Tell me southern food is not fattening.
Now, you all know there is no such thing as food restricted to a region. "Southern" cooking is no more than memories of people from the south of the dishes they were served when they were children. How many of us think that things were simpler, purer when we were children? That's because we WERE children then: EVERYTHING is simple to a child. Also, children are hungry little creatures, so everything is better to them (because food tastes better when you are hungry.). Take a taste test and– in a blind study–choose which food is "southern". Of course, you cannot, because food is food and regions are regions. They are not unique in any important way anymore. But nostalgia reigns, anyway–because when nostalgia disagrees with reality, nostalgia wins every time. (America has the best health care and education system in the world. Right?)
Please someone teach the New Yorkers how to make good southern food. As a native Texan bound for NYC in september it would be beyond nice.
I grew up with fried chicken, chicken fried steak, fried okra, greenbeans with some sort of pork in them, candied yams, sweetpotato pie, turnisps, home made rolls and biscuits, bacon, smoked ham, monkeybread, potroast, tamales, fajitas, enchiladas, sopapillas, bbq brisket, sausage, corn nuggets, etc. Ok, now I'm hungry.
The south haters talking trash above (i.e. internet trolls) should just take some southern advice–"if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."
For those of you who love Southern cooking, or would like to know more about it, please read "The Glory of Southern Cooking" by James Beard Award -winner James Villas. The food editor for Town & Country Magazine for many years, he has devoted his life to the subject. If you don't love Southern cooking, why not go to a discussion about the kind of food you prefer? Southern cooking is made up of many different regional preferences. Talking about Southern cooking is akin to discussing a southern accent – what part of the South are you talking about? It 's all different. A Virginia accent is very different from a Tennessee accent, which is very different from a Mississippi accent, etc, and so it is with cuisine. Southern cuisine (like any other) has a lot to do with the people that were there in the beginning, came voluntarily, or were brought involuntarily – English, French, Scotch-Irish, Scottish, Africans, Spanish, Native American and more. I'm a Tennessean, now living in Florida, who lived in the Upper Midwest for eight years. I won't name the state, but the food couldn't compare to the South in my opinion. Lots of casseroles made with canned ingredients, and no one seemed to know much about vegetables.I love trying newly discovered southern recipes, and some of the best come from old church or Junior League cookbooks. As far as obesity, the whole country is getting way fatter. The South doesn't have a monopoly on that.
Southern food can stay in the south along with their weird, dumb superstitions?? I've never heard so many ass-backwards beliefs in my life. Like "kissing pimples" on a newborn baby. The older folks in my husband's Alabama family say this happens to a baby when you let too many people kiss him/her. When really the pimples erupt from oil that was in the amniotic fluid. AND when my husband was a baby, he had an Aunt that would pinch his nose to try and shape it in to a less "Flat" shape. Ridiculous. Anyway, the food is good, I agree, but I can only eat it maybe once, twice a year at most. And who, that has every prepared food for the ones they love, does not put their heart and soul in to it? Whether you are making Southern or soul food, Italian, Polish, German, Asian, we all have our traditions. And we'll never all agree, so calm down people! God Bless America, glad we can all speak our minds here in this great country! Happy Holidays everyone : )
As a good ol southern boy who loves southern food. Some of the best food that I have had so far has been in Athens Ga. There is a little group called the Four Coursemen who do dinner parties a few times a month in a house. The food I have had there was unbelievable (better than a lot of the best Atlanta Restaurants) A full 5 course meal all paired with wine. The best thing is is that the food is mostly sustainable and locally grown. I have eaten there a few times and every time is a knock out. The problem is that they sell out quick. If you ever have the chance you should check them out.
Ga Born To those that do not know the different between Soul Food and Southern Food. Southern food is the foods that were served in the master home during slavery. Soul food is the food that was given to the slaves to eat.I"m only ,4 generations from slavery. Our fore parents had to learn how to cook this throw away food. They ingeniously figure out how to do this. It was done with love and hard work and with their whole soul. That why it is called soul food. When you taste it you know they put their soul in it. If probably cooked fried foods are not greasy. It has to be cooked on the right temperature and drained probably. Our food is a label of love. My parent lived to be in their 90"s eating this food.
Southern cooking, much like all modern day cooking has rolled over and died. Nobody cooks, they eat take out, or nuke something from a package. Maybe they make a cake from a box. Real home cooking is a lost art. Southern cooking as I remember it is either deep fried or too sweet. But the atmosphere of love around the table lends a rosy glow to even poorly prepared food. That's the secret ingredient of Southern fare.
don't be so pessimistic. i know i'm not the only one who prefers cooking most of her foods from scratch, and loving every minute of it—even the clean up! :)
You must LIVE in the kitchen . Poor thing–get a life. I'll bet you are obese, too!
does that make you feel better, hannah? haha.
CNN knows as much about Southern Cooking as I know about going to the moon.
Why has nobody mentioned fried gator tails? I have a dear friend in NC who loves them, but I wouldn't touch them.... just not kosher.
Southern cooking does not usually mix meat and vegetables together in a dish, at least not the way my mom has cooked for the last 50 years. Her cooking is just like my grandmother's. Each vegetable is cooked and seasoned separately. That is, unless she's making chicken and dumplings. When I became friends with some folks from up north, much of their cooking is pasta with meats and sauces and vegetables mixed in. I never ate pasta growing up unless Mom could think of nothing else to cook except spaghetti. Most every meat was fried (Mom's 'yard bird' was the best until I started cooking it.). We had a slice of white bread with dinner when there wasn't enough time to make cornbread or biscuits. I could go on and on. I do want to agree that soul food is, in itself, a genre of its own. Bye y'all. I'm hungry!
I'll admit, I came from a household where Yankee and Southern traditions had to exist together. But the fried chicken was real Southern stuff. So were the mashed potatoes. We had a few Yankee additions, but the vast majority of things derived from my mother's country upbringing. She made great corn bread and fantastic pies and cakes. Yet when she sat down for a snack, it was a white sandwich: white bread, mayo, slices of cold mashed potatoes and thick slices of onion, which she consumed with great appreciation.
Poor people's cooking? We didn't know we were poor. That stuff was GOOD. Well, good-tasting.
Much of the tradition in our household came from Poor Valley, TN, home of the Carter Family. Butter, sow belly and salt were the most important flavorings. Turnip greens needed vinegar to cut the grease, and green beans were olive drab by the time they were "done."
But we also had fresh Turbeville cantaloupes that were luscious with vanilla ice cream and grown-at-home tomatoes and peppers that livened up dinners and sandwiches. Sweet potato pie for dinner and fried rhubarb for breakfast (on amazing butter biscuits rolled out on the kitchen table at 5 a.m.) were delicacies.
A neighbor brought us pecks of fresh veggies every morning in the summer, a thanks for letting him plow some of our (rented) land. And the "sisters" would create Sunday lunches for after church that delighted some, but grossed out others. (The aforementioned turnip greens never did set well with me ... or my sister.)
Yet the pecan pie recipes live on in northern California, recipe transported with reverence to my sister's new home out West 30 years ago.
If you're not a farmer, sweating off all those calories and all that fat every day, you just can't eat like that all the time. But when you do, it's down-home GOOOOOOD.
Oh, I forgot to mention the jar of bacon grease in the refrigerator, which was used to fry whatever needed frying. Reusing and recycling aren't new ideas.
Ya'll don't dirty up this post with responses to trolls, just ignore them. Enjoy your talk about Southern food!
And me... I love me some good ALABAMA BBQ! Mmmmm!!
I think that soul food is gross and very unhealthy. If someone loves him/herself, he/she would never put that in the body. Just my opinion.
I'm from Denver, my fiance is from Georgetown, South Carolina. Our cooking styles differ like night and day. My man goes home 3x a year for his granny's cooking. He doesn't understand why we don't have grits in our grocery stores. I had never had collards until I met him (28 years old), black eyed peas and okra were pretty foreign to me as well. My mom bought me a southern comfort cookbook for xmas so that I could make my man feel more at home. I tried to the biscuits and dumplings recipe, but it just didn't compare to his nanny's cooking. Stewed tomatoes and rice with every meal is the key to southern cooking as well. I've learned to put my collards, my pintos, my oakra, my blackeyed peas on top of the rice. Pork chops are eaten once a week at our home. I love it! This is the best style of cooking and I feel cheated that I wasn't introduced to Southern cooking sooner. As a matter of fact I'm booking my tix to Charleston as I speak for the annual xmas hog roast. Fish fry's, oysters, shrimp and grits here I come!!! I love dating a southern gentleman!
fried catfish, pecan pie, Carolina-style pulled pork BBQ, hush puppies, cole slaw (all HOMEMADE).... this is southern food.
And piss off with the whole HERP DERP fat thing, I am 160 lbs and have been eating here my whole life. Even New England Clam Chowder will make someone a fat turd if they eat too much of it.
Considering the obesity rates of south'ners, y'alls . . . it used to be said Rumanian cooking killed more Jews than Hitler. Similarly, I think it can be said southern cooking has killed 100x more southerners than Sherman, Grant combined. Go Mediterranean or Asian but leave that greasy obesey kid stuff alone! Just 'cause your Momma made it doesn't make it good for you - wake up and smell the red snapper sauteed in olive oil! Maybe you'll clear the blood flow to your brain and vote democrat next time, too!
Go be a retard somewhere else... why is the stereotypical New Yorker a fat Italian-American slob then?
Now, now Mike . . . you should visit New York - you'd see you don't know what you're talking about.
New York Italians don't eat like real Italians. They eat like Italian-Americans – which is why most NY Italians are fat too.
I could not agree more. Our generation must be smarter and break the negative cycle left by our ancestors although they did not know any better. Thank God for education! We all have free will.
Fyi, down here we need the calories, but your right it is some of the most unhealthy food but only if you don't get up and do something like sitting is a cubicle or living in a city. I honestly think we would die eating some of the "healthy" stuff you guys eat just for the simple fact we need the calories, and the democratic thing is straight b.s. down here entitlements=shame unless you need it. In my younger years i was a democrat now i'm a libertarian, but for the life of me i can't see why people hate freedom so bad and vote democratic or fake republican.
Southern food = fat.
Exhibit A: Southerners
LOL I am fantastic!!! I am all packed for my trip home. Can't wait to go. Hmmm...I may have to pack some go go boots!!! LOL
It's going to cost mea fortune for extra baggage because of all the gifts I'm bringing home....I should have just shopped when I got there. Wasn't sure I could get the time off though...but I did!!!
Might be cheaper to mail the stuff ahead of time. No Fair-I thought the go-go boots were our thing. Did ya see my answer to EM on the NYC thread? Seems like a nice person.
I did see that! You are such a sweetheart. Yeah EM seemed nice. Although.....I was stunned by all the heateful comments about Elaine herself...
I concur! Let's take it to 5@5 as this is the hot topic thread of the day and don't want to P/O anyone.
Do not any southern dishes with sea food The Gulf was poisoned from the oil spill
I would have to say "deep fried" along with tons of "spices" makes what Southern food is all about. We lived in TN for several years and it was hard to find something to eat in a restaurant that wasn't deep fried. We don't eat fried foods at all or anything that is spicy. The type of cooking they do down in the deep south, is called Creole I believe. The spicier and hotter the better. Of course, eating foods like that all the time, will do a number on your stomach in years to come so be prepared! However, am sure some would say they don't care as it is so delicious. While living in TN for several years, I was told I had high cholesterol, which was funny as I never ate fried foods. Found out it was hereditary. The doctor told me to eat vegetables, which I don't since I never liked them but he said that "beans" would be fine. One day while out driving, we found this restaurant called Pardners and went in for lunch. On the menu, they had beans so I figured I'd try them to see how they tasted. Yummy came to mind after the first mouthful. After that, we were eating there 2-3 times a week. 3 months later when I went back to have my cholesterol checked, I told the doctor it should have really dropped since I was eating beans 2-3x a week. He asked if they were lima or the brown beans and I said, "no, Pardners beans", to which he had a shocked looked on his face and said, "no wonder you liked them, they are cooked in nothing but fat" and that is why they tasted so good! Of course when the results came in, my numbers were still high and since it wasn't due to what I eat, had to be hereditary. We always laugh at that story. Anyway, for those of you who can eat spicy/fried, enjoy it while you can!
Y'all should find a copy of Marjorie Kinnan Rawling's book, Cross Creek and read the Chapter called Our Daily Bread. It's about how a non-Southern woman comes to appreciate and understand Southern Cuisine. She mentions a lot of the things listed here like hush puppies and cooking in cast iron as well as hearts of palm and gator meat (which I've never tried). Hers isn't the last word since she was limited to mid-Florida and these postings show the variety in Southern food based on the region but it is a good essay on some of the wonders of this area. Like these postings, though, reading it will make you hungry.
You'll excuse me, but it's time to make my biscuits.
I was born in Georgia and now live in Canada I am looking for the origins of a recipe my mother made and I make today It is tacos made with a filling of ground beef and shredded potatoes there are no seasoning packet just salt and pepper and everyone that tries them falls in love deep in love with them I seem to recall Dad saying it came from Tennessee if anyone could help would be appreciated!! I believe it could be a true southern dish?
I'm in Denver, but I make this all the time. My girlfriend from Guanajuato, Leon, Mexico taught me how to make these tacos. I cut my potatoes into squares though instead of shredding the potatoes. I also use ground beef and onions.....throw in some spices and use the little 7" corn tortillas....mmmmmm I find it interesting that this could also be a southern recipe.
The deep south states are Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. Just to list a few things that southerners cook very well are... fried chicken or pork chops, mash potato's with gravy, buttermilk biscuits,cornbread, cream silver queen corn,served with sliced delicious homegrown tomatoes , turnip greens or collards, catfish, shrimp (fried,steamed,grilled or w/grits), bacon, strong coffee, pecan pies, homemade from scratch banana pudding, creole (shrimp,chicken,sausage or anything that taste good in it!), gumbo, oyster stew, and I could on forever! Yes we use butter, bacon drippings or anything that might enhance the food. Sometimes the simple meals are the better meals, and they actually do not cost a fortune to create..
See what I mean? Stupid people....can't even spell. "Mash potatoe's"? What's that? Mashed potatoes? Ignorance has led to the South's having the highest OBESITY rate in the United States. I'll take my salads and lean grilled foods, thanks...with no okra-snot or grease drippings. UGH!
I forgot to mention hot fresh boiled peanuts pulled green from the field and then slow cooked over several hours while we all went to church. By the time church was over we'd have a huge pile of boiled peanuts while we waited the rest of the meal to finish cooking!
Who BOILS ? Peanuts should be roasted. Food food food....gotta have it ready when "church" is over. No wonder the southern states have the highest OBESITY rate in the country! Shame on all of you.
Hannah, peanuts should be cooked however the person likes. I like roasted peanuts as well as boiled. Don't knock it until you try it. If you've never been to a farmers market in the south and gotten a pound of hot fresh boiled peanuts then please do us all a favor and never visit the south. We don't need people who look at southerners as obese uneducated hicks. Stay where you are and pleaes never come to the south.
I thought it was interesting when I was in NYC once they had a barbecue cookoff in one of the squares and the lines were around the corners. I felt sorry for all those northern city dwellers who missed out regularly on good food. They go to restaurants that serve a little piece of fish and a few potatoes with a green bean or two and some chef's pretty artwork with mustard sauce and then pay $50 for it. How sad indeed.
I'm a southern native and know all about good southern food. Cooking a big meal for all of the family and friends is what we did several times a week. The food was rarely fried and usually pulled straight from the garden. Cooking was a social event and every meal took hours to prepare. While the women stayed in the kitchen and drank real sweet tea the men were cooking outside over a slow pit BBQ. No one was ever in a hurry to eat because the family time and good conversation were always the most important part. It's all about the love and time invested in the family. Once we started eating it took a long time and then we all helped clean up afterwards. It was a magical time in my life where everyone shared their freshly picked veggies as well as secret recipes, enjoyed hours of good conversation, and helped each other in every way possible.
They have so much leisure time because no one has a J O B. In the real world, that's called : "Get a life", stop being so dam lazy and get some exercise! That's when men told women to "sit and shut up", and they DID it! UGH Sitting on one's butts and fixating on food and gossip..............
Hannah, you must be a troll. My family all had jobs and no one was obese because everyone was always hard at work. No one told the women to sit down and shut up because the women were all very strong. If you hate southerners then please do us all a favor and NEVER go south of the Mason Dixon line.
Honestly, just looking at the descriptions of some of this stuff Southerners eat makes me want to puke. Take "whatever was available" and throw it in a pot? "BACOC CANDY"? Marketed as double heart-attack fodder?? Same mentality that keeps "Southerners" flyin' that ol' rebel flag! (Why have you not evolved beyond this?) Martha Stewart is gagging, right along with me.
Here"s a bucket,You can wear it on your head when you are done!
LOL Could be an avant garde fashion statement with the right accessories!!! LOL How you doing this fine morning??? LOL Did you notice all the nasty comments on the other thread??? Someone thought I must be in my mid 50's....that hurt!!! LOL J/K At least I don't come across like a teeny bopper.
Mornin' Sunshine! Think You would look Great in a mini-skirt and go-go boots. Yea, I saw that one. Plus a couple of others. You dong o.k. this morning?
Come on now, where are your manners?
Everyone here is essentially correct. If you were born into a family with roots in which meals were prepared from what was handy, you know your version of "Southern Cooking". I grew up in a family that was very poor and if we didn't grow it, raise it, and kill it, we didn't eat. I also remember working very long and hard days as a kid to make sure that things were maintained and put up for long cold winters. When meal time came around, you were about as hungry as hungry could be. It didn't matter what type of cooking was on the table, it all tasted real good. The most common fair in our home was "cat head" biscuits and gravy, chicken, pheasant, quail, rabbit, and just about any kind of potato you can imagine. These things were all very inexpensive or free for the hunting. I remember going to the store about once a month for 25 lb bags of flour and sugar and other small spices like salt and pepper. "Southern Cooking" was not something we even coined back then, it was just eating what was available. I thank God for people like my mom, who could take such simple foods and turn them into such great memories.
I remember saying one distinguishing characteristic of southern food was fatback. If you can't see your face in the collard greens, you haven't used enough. Also, I would add to the list cornbread, oyster pie, squash casserole, fried chicken of course and so many others. Thinking about it gets me hungry.
Southern food- fresh? in the summer. Otherwise it's been canned (home canned). Grease? In everything- but just a bit- flavor, not greasy. Cooked-to-death or raw (cabbage, collards, greens, 'peas' all cooked-to-death. Fresh tomato- raw. except when you fry the green ones). Peas are not green down here, salads have 7 layers, cakes 16. The best parts of Southern cooking? corn (If you're from here you know what I mean- it's not on the cob, and it's not the pasty creamed corn in a can, it's grandma magic). grits (with shrimp). Hot ham biscuts on a cold morning. pickled okra. boiled peanuts. Sweet tea with everything. On special occasions, we might break out the Scuppernog wine (which is so sweet it makes you sing) Pimento cheese on white bread with the crusts cut off for fancy (wedding showers) or just left on- farmer cheese cut from ginormous yellow wheels at country hardware stores. All of the good things~
It's amazing how so many folks have something to say about things they really don't know about. I very rarely respond to posts, but I just had to get my nose in on this one.
Catfish is not "seafood". Not only can it be fried, it can be baked or broiled. I cook in an iron skillet that is 70 years old. I can live off of homemade cornbread cooked in an iron skillet, white acre peas, field peas with snaps, cream 40's, sweet potatoes straight out of the garden, squirrel and rice, back-strap, 1 cup cobbler and other wonderful and healthy southern delights ; I live in North Florida, not far from the Georgia line and a just a stone's throw from the Alabama line. Oh, and I am educated too!!
Be open to enjoy what each place you visit has to offer; yes, we all have differences, but on this one, we all love good food!
Well, being from Texas isn't strictly 'Southern', but we do have our own take on things. We always had the pecan pies, chocolate pies, and my own Nannie's famous macaroni and cheese which even now I'm not fully able to duplicate! My biggest memories are of fried chicken (only my other Grandma could really make it!) and like you've said her buttermilk biscuits and gravy! Of course, one mustn't forget the chicken fried steak or BBQ! I've lived out of the country for several years now, but the first day I arrive back in Texas I head to the kitchen and start duplicating these dishes! I know how to 'cook' them overseas, but the ingredients never seem to taste the same. Hopefully, I'll be able to 'pass on' to my own grandkids a love of at least some of these foods, because as one of the other posters said it is the love in the preparation that is the real key to Southern cooking!
Southern food was always about what you got from the land. The South having more of it than other states. We were the original breadbasket for the colonies and able to grow stuff such as rice, tomatoes, strawberries better than most until California joined the Union.
I was always told that Soul Food was the stuff that the rich folks wouldn't use such as chitterlings, scrapple, potatoes, and other foods that was reminiscent of poverty or Europe.
But both Southern and Soul Food used lots and lots of butter and lard.
Southern food is the food that everybody wants but that most are too afraid to eat for whatever reason. For some it's because of their health, for others it's because they want to portray a different image of themselves to others. More often, though, I think it comes from Southern food giving non-Southern people an image of themselves that they don't want. They want to believe they are above traditional dishes and are foodies or gourmands or whatever they want to call themselves. Ironically, these are often the same people who blame the rich for all of their problems and identify with being liberal...
They only think they have problems, dear.
Historically, one has to look at the South's past to understand its palate; an economically downtrodden population for centuries had to make the most out of the least. That tended to be cornmeal, pork, chicken (often not the choicest parts of either) and whatever was hauled fresh from the field, forest, or sea. Deep African roots introduced new foods such as okra and peanuts that were suitable for the hot climate as well as open-pit cooking of pigs and goats. Today's pig pickin' has turned into serious big money competition. All that, along with the cultural isolation that allowed Southern cuisine to develop as an independent style made food a cultural element that is taken wherever Southerners settle. It is possible to go to Brooklyn and smell collards cooking, or to Chicago where specialty merchants sell grits, or to California where visiting Southern relatives take country hams to expatriots.
I think that true southern food isn't necessarily as much about the food but where you got the recipe. It is more about passing a recipe on for many generations and "making it the exact same way as my mama made it."
For example, in my family we have passed on the same Friday LUNCH (my great-grandmother made a near-Thanksgiving dinner from scratch every Friday for the whole family) recipes down from my great-grandmother's grandmother (and probably further). It includes mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, ham, gravy, fried okra, beans, and corn.
In a generic definition, my friends and I always "joke" that in the south, we will fry anything and for years we didn't know that some vegetables were edible without batter and grease. We do use bacon a lot – but we equally use the grease. Pork and beans has bacon on top, a poor-boy has bacon wrapped around it, we put bacon in our green beans, we put bacon on our hamburgers (constantly), and for breakfast, we love eating the bacon, but the gravy is just as wonderful.
But being from the south, the recipes are what does it. Just because you pull a recipe from the internet for fried okra doesn't make it southern. But my grandmother's recipe for it is – to me.
I'm from New Orleans and I agree with Ben. Fried shrimp and fried oyster po boys, seafood gumbo, stuffed crab......
Everything in moderation. I can only eat fried food occasionally, but when I do, it is so good.
I remember a friend of a friend who was in town and came to dinner with a group of us here in N.O. We went to Mosca's Restaurant. Well, this guy was critical of us when we ordered Mosca's oyster dressing. I believe his statement was "The only time I eat oyster dressing is at the obligatory Thanksgiving meal at my Mother's house". I'll never forget the way this guy practically licked the plate after placing the last bit of Mosca's oyster dressing in his mouth.
I found a beautifully written story in Gourmet (I miss it so much!) magazine about the food writer, Edna Lewis. They reprinted her article "What Is Southern?" originally published in Jan. 2008. Google this and enjoy.
I am second generation cajun. Its almost hilarious reading some of these posts. Southern cooking can be broken down into different regions, each with its own specialties, healthy and not so healthy. Remain quiet and be thought a fool, speak and remove all doubt.
Biscuits with butter and cane syrup. Sooo gooood!
Southern food equals high obesity rates! There is nothing healthy about southern cooking!!! F-A-T-T-E-N-I-N-G!!!!
Really? Google collard greens and the nutrients in them. Still feel smart and better than others?
Born in Virginia, living in Pa- Southern food is about freshness, gardens in jars, family and fun. Want to gain weight try some Pennsylvania Dutch food. Sweet Jesus I sure could use a slaw dog and sweet tea right now.
After reading all of these comments, I am prepared to answer the question posed. What is southern food? Ham hocks, fresh vegetables, peach cobbler, and sweet tea.
I'm a GRIT (girl raised in the south). My mom is Georgian, and dad is Tennessee. Raised me in rural NC. Yes, there are a lot of wonderful regional specialities, but it has to be FRESH and made with love and attention, no matter what it is.
Growing up, my parents plowed under a square acre and that was our veggie garden. The folks next door had a grape arbor, and down the street, a neighbor had a huge strawberry patch. Blackberries and raspberries grew wild by the nearby lake.
When it was supper time, my mother would tell use to go get some corn, potatoes, tomatoes, whatever. Things were either slow cooked and well seasoned, lightly breaded and fried in a skillet, or sliced fresh & raw and served with a vinegar/mayo dressing. A huge home grown tomato with a dab of mayo was a favorite side dish.... When mom wanted to make a pie, she'd hand me a colander and tell me, "Go down and get some strawberries from Mr. Nelson's patch, and tell him to send one of the kids up and pull some carrots (or whatever we had just coming up)".
That is it. Fresh, local, and simple – and well (but not TOO) seasoned. No matter what. And it was always made with a kitchen full of people conversing. Seafood was what we caught ourselves and took home to mom. Cakes and biscuits were made from scratch, no recipes. Grandma never wrote them down; just eyeball it. You guys need to stop over-thinking this. :)
Man, I could eat some johnny cake with butter on it right now....
When I go South to visit relatives in Northern Florida, I love to eat me some fried mullet, cheese grits, okra fried and okra cooked with Black eyed peas, boiled gulf shrimp, anything from Joe Patti's in Pensacola, barbeque, bolied peanuts. YUM
As a native South Carolinian, just thinking about cheese grits, liver pudding, lime congealed salad, pimento cheese, fried chicken, boiled peanuts, fried okra, red-eye gravy and my grandmother's pound cake sends me to heaven. And for all of you who have dissed the South and its food, I will gracefully say 'Bless Your Heart'.
SuthrnLuv, I'm with you on that. I grew up in a little town called Brinkley, in eastern Arkansas where the Delta region begins. I still remember standing in the back yard with my grandmother and a salt shaker just eating the tomatoes right off the vines. All about were the sounds of cicadas and the rich humidity that made everything grow so beautifully.
I remember the little diner about 8 or 9 blocks from the house that served the best catfish in the universe–big fried fillets of catfish with cole slaw. This always came with sliced onions, cherry peppers, lemon and chow chow. It's been at least ten years since I have had that catfish and my mouth still waters to think of it.
Although life took me to Illinois, I still grow a garden and can chow chow every fall, in addition to what else happens along. I still make cornbread in the same iron skillet that has been in the family for more than a century and my family and friends always manage to know just when it goes into the oven. Each time I pull out that skillet, I think of the generations before me. Every time I make biscuits or fry chicken, I think of my greatgrandmother who taught me how to make those and a million other things.
That is the soul of my Southern cooking........
I think my husband's breakfasts, while a bit over the top, are prime examples of southern food. He likes to make biscuits, sausage gravy, fried eggs -over medium-, corned beef or roast beef hash, grits, hashbrowns, bacon, ham and steak. Or, like today, he just make biscuits with pork tenderloin, ham and steak. Meats all cooked on a griddle so they aren't greasy. Southern food doesn't mean greasy food.
I just skimmed some posts so I may have missed it, but I didn't see anyone mention butter beans. I love butter beans! When I've talked foods with northern friends, if I mention butter beans they have no idea what that is.
Proud Tennesseean for 26 years.
Home grown tomato gravy with cracklin cornbread-okra lightly battered with cornmeal and fried-speckled butter beans-home made macaroni and cheese-spring onion straight out of the garden-sweet iced tea and blackberry cobbler for desert!
please..please do not cofuse Paua Dean with rhe real southern cooking...... She has made too much money and has forgtten where it came from. Southern cooking is from what has been left .....
lorelei: It's not the baby carrots that bug me, we had those if that's the state they were in when we pulled them, it's the pretentious nature of the "presentation". Short Ribs, fine. A garden salad, sure. I never, in my life, saw anything at all even close to what these people are calling their "Southern Cooking Secret Meal". Never. Ever. As I said before it looks tasty, but it's not Southern – not Southern USA at least. One other comment.... We should be careful not to totally conflate Soul and Southern. They intermingle and share, but ultimately they are distinct.
Willieboy: I agree with you. I used that baby carrot as the symbol of all things pretentious.
What is Southern cooking? Food prepared with a purpose. Feeding people. Satisfying appetites and taste buds together. My mother and her mother and her mother have made delicious Southern delicacies for generations. My mother's biscuits are perfection and she never twists the cutter (she is very superstitious and recently shared with me that she couldn't talk on the phone due to her work in the kitchen perfecting her already perfect biscuit). Now that I think of it, this is what Southern food is all about. Taking the ordinary and making it better. And ya know, she's done this, along with her sisters, my entire life. From the best cornbread from Kentucky to Florida (she nearly fainted when she learned that Three Rivers brand cornmeal was no longer on the market), to marvelous mayonnaise based salads, fried chicken, dumplings, dressing, poke sallet and beans seasoned "to life," they all tell a story of what it means to be from the South. Now, after all this talk, I'm swallowing hard! (coutesy Paula Deen, our Southern expert). Cheers y'all!
Brenda, you mentioned the magic dish-poke sallet. I remember many years of picking it and cooking it with my grandmother as a kid. And I know just what you mean about the mayonnaise based salads, especially fried chicken salad and the macaroni salads that were everpresent. I guess my cornbread dressing, another old family recipe, has become legendary. I was so proud and mad at the same time when both pans that I had leftover from Thanksgiving were gone in one day, along with two gallons of turkey gravy.
I just watched the video. A single baby carrot has never graced any plate in my house. That is not southern food. I don't know WHAT that was.
I have to agree, even though I was really trying to keep an open mind. I could just hear the hell my grandmother would have raised if somebody pulled up her carrots before they were finished growing!
I have lived in a small farm town in the South for 5 years. I can say for a fact, the food is horrid. If it an't drippin in grease, it comes from a can or is processed. Perhaps 100 years ago it was something, but grease and 1940's "modern foods" make up 99% of the Menu today, even home cookin. Poor people food, yes! But t cmpare it to the wondful, aritstic and healthy Italian poor folk food is crazy. Southern food is a myth. It is grease and canned food, let's not kid ourseves.
You've lived there 5 years? I've lived in Alabama all of my life and so have generations of my family. This canned food you're speaking of may be prevalent where you lived, but as for my grandmother, she always grew her own veggies. Fresh okra, tomatoes, green beans, greens, cucumbers, etc. Yes, we tend to cook with grease and butter. But true Southern cooking is from scratch, not a can.
Wow, five WHOLE years? Well, then you obviously know more than the people here recounting their decades of life in the South. In case everyone was too polite to tell you, and I'm sure they have been, this is why they don't like you. I don't think I've eaten anything out of a can in about 25 years. Real Southern food is never from a can. Lol, talk to us in another 20 years and we'll hear about what an expert on the South you are. (btw- people are out there growing their own delicious foods- your food is from a can because you aren't)
Southern summers in Arkansas meant meals right out of the garden (which was the whole front yard)..fresh corn, fried okra, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, fish fried and caught that morning in the lake..fresh preserves and sorghum (Papaw and family got...the whole process took a week), red eye gravy, honey from the beehives we had...on and on! And sweet tea.
I'm from Mobile & around there it's knowing how to cook a roux, cook with rice, white pepper & okra. I think fried chicken floured in a brown paper bag & hot, hot grease. Pecan pies without the chocolate or caramel like they seem to do in Atlanta.
Yankees know what is best about food and that is why all the good restaurants are North of Virginia. Japanese have the best food in the world.
Well, let's all enjoy it while it's still here, before the federal government determines that American citizens are consuming too many biscuits and too much butter, which leads to dietary-related health risks, which in turn overburdens the health care system. Nothing spices up a menu like the federal fun police.
Are any of you aware of the southern icon Oprah Winfrey? Her brand and her essence is born of the south. If one wonders why the charm of the south is espoused so passionately here, just look to what Oprah has accomplished with her good old southern self.
The south differs from all other regions in very specific ways, food included. Tradition, grace, family........and traditionally the mothers and grandmothers cooking are at the heart of a home. I have always lived in the south, having a father with tenant farms we would visit each afternoon to pick fresh corn or beans for dinner as a child, to doing my first tour in Europe at age 17 with my mother. I can still recall the utter deliciousness of a true french croissant at the Crillon and roast duck at the french market, paella and sangria at the Ritz in Madrid, and high tea at the Dorchester. Throughout my career I have traveled globally as well as having worked in every region of the US on various projects. Each region does have foods and traditions that are unique, but few have food that flows from a gracious and friendly place.
You see, in the true south to rush someone, or to be curt in your manner, or to not welcome one more to your table is the worst of insults. My greatest pleasure this year was to teach my daughter how to plant tomatoes, grow them, then harvest and can them. Additionally my mother still makes the best ever watermelon and fresh pack cucumber pickles I have ever tasted. I can still recall my father picking ripe big boy tomatoes from our garden, washing it off at the outdoor spigot, and then handing it to me to eat like an apple in the summer heat.
It is about more than the food, it's the culture and it's the belief system, as well as the lifestyle. I would never live in another part of our country, so deeply held are those beliefs and traditions in my soul. That does not mean I cannot appreciate other regions and their traditions, food, and culture. But few have met similar criteria for pure welcoming hospitality and yes, it's part of the flavor within our food ;)
Any kneading of biscuit dough is too much. Stir together until it almost hangs together and then gently pat into a slightly raggy 3/4 inch thick round. I cut mine out with the top of a jelly jar. Always light and fluffy. If you use self-rising flower and buttermilk, you need to add a pinch of baking soda to the mix.
Native Virginian here:
"deviled eggs (with paprika sprinkled on top), green beans cooked with a ham hock, sweet potatoe casserole with pecans, and a Virginia ham" Southern Sue, girl, is that you?
Also, brunswick stew, black walnuts, and sloes (kind of a grape). Also, I always thought "sallet" was just southern for "salad." Sallet greens could be poke greens, collard greens, or turnip greens. Also, thin slices of fatback fried for breakfast; it's the equivalent of bacon. Crispy, crunchy, delicious!
BIG LIMAS, not black eyed or Pinto. Pinto aint no southern food!!
I have to agree. Southern food is food cooked in the south. The food that everyone is shoutin' about is Soul Food. And you can get it in any black home or establishment. For example, I am from Virginia, but I used to live in New York City, and I had the best stuffed pork chops in this solar system at Sylvia's in Harlem. The list of favorites goes on and on: no one made potato salad like my mama, corn pudding (a dessert, not the dreck I found in New York City that had SALT AND PEPPER-sacrilege), collard greens with ham hocks, macaroni and cheese, slow cooked pinto beans, corn with sliced tomatoes, ummmm ummmmm. Don, count me among your number: slave food/soul food = southern food.
Cornbread and pintos!
Black Eye Peas....Not Pintos!
We did pintos!
Southern Food.....Billy Bob caught it......Blanche cooked it..........Soul Food... Uncle Willie caught it.....Beulah cooked it.....End of story!
LOL. That's cute. And maybe just a tiny bit true.
I'm from NY and have been in the south for 5 years. I'll tell you what southern food is: AWFUL! Anything full of FAT, fried, dripping with "gravy" (fat mixed with flour), and meat, meat, meat! Bad place for a vegetarian! Can't get a good pizza anywhere. No wonder the south is full of FAT people! Ugh UGH UGH
They invented the term 'smothered and covered'.
Which is exactly what their aortae will be by age 50, if they keep eating the slop they call food. Soooo-EEEEEE
Then go on back where you came from. Delta's ready when you are! Don't let the screen door hit you in the butt on your way out, bless your heart.
I'd give anything to do just that! All I need is the money. How about y'all give it to me, and you stay here and stuff your "pah-hole" with grease and lard. I'll send you my address for your check...
I can tell you exactly what Southern food is. First off, it really has nothing to do with the South at all. It's the food that the slaves prepared for their masters and their families. Southern food is actually African American food. You can get the same meal at an African Americans house in Buffalo NY or Cleveland OH that you can anywhere down South. The only difference is up North we call it soul food, and down South, the white republican racist bigots claim it as their own and call it Southern food. I can tell you what a Southern drawl is too. That came from slave owners children being raised by their mammy's. It's a combination of English and an Africans form of broken English as they were learning the language. So there you go. You can thank a black person for your food and your drawl. Now please tell us what your contribution to this country has been since we know it's not food.
Actually Don, The Blacks first spoke French and Portuguese,not learning English until arriving in the Americas. As for my good friend from Canada,She does excellent research to curb diabetes! So what's your excuse!
My excuse is that I'm correct that the southern drawl comes from mammy's, and Southern food was created by blacks. Both are proven to be 100% true.
Well, fiddley dee thank you sir!!!! RH You're going to have to come back home with me for a visit,and some really good Canadian food. Maybe we'll visit Martin Picard and go to his restaurant...killer food. It's really strange during 9/11 when I lived in Nova Scotia and we took in travellers stranded at airports into our homes, we were ok then. When huge groups of Canadians travelled to NY after 9/11 because others were afraid to travel there...we were ok then too. But, any other time...we just don't get it apparently. I work in your country because I feel it's where I can do the most good,and it has helped a lot of people. I love the US,and for now it's my home. Just wish some Americans would give us a fair shake.
I mean we're not all sitting in our igloos,with our same sex partners (not that there's anything wrong with that),watching hockey and smoking BC Bud. Canadians love the US....some people just need to show a little sugar back!!
I would look forward to that Sunshine.
Sir, I have researched both sides of my family all the way back to 17th century Holland, England, and Ireland. No one in my family was a slave owner or a slave, For the most part, they were simple farmers and lived off the land just like many black families. There were similarities in the meals, speech patterns, and family life between rural white and black families – and, Sir, not all blacks in the south were slaves. The meals that my grandmothers, great grandmothers, and so on, prepared came from family recipes and traditions, not from slaves "teaching" them how to do it, because there weren't any slaves around. In the countryside, many black and white families were friends and dependent on each other when help was needed. Strong bonds were forged and the world of the average farmer in 18th and 19th century North Carolina had many "gray" areas. There were several large plantations where slaves were held in the south AND the north, but there were a hundred times more small, poor farmers who appreciated and depended on their neighbors, be they black or white. I am proud of my strong, southern, country heritage. Please do your research, Sir, before you launch into your bigoted retoric, thank you,
We have a Winner! +50 points. Thank You and well said!
Check your mail. You might find some snow.
@RH No kidding eh...you never want to get caught without a raincoat......lol
I concur that and any and all future concurence's . Can't spell today.
LOL I concur. Man, so now I'm Canadian and "don't get it" apparently..Whatever...This thread is getting too long and delving into ugly North/South nonsense...it's like watching a miniseries play out.
I hear ya. The North VS The South Dvd set of 24 discs.
I was Southern, when Southern wasn't cool...
One of them comments quoted in the article said "quit fru-fruing things up." Truer words were never spoken. And one of the worst "fru-fruers" is Southern Living magazine. They have gotten so far away from Southern in their cooking it isn't even funny. They stopped being Southern a long time ago.
I have lived in the north and the south, and can tell you that people in the north do not know how to cook (unless they were raised in the south).
You know...I'm just about as Northern as you can get. I'm Canadian. I take much offense to a lot of the comments I'm reading here. I'm from the North and I sure as hell can cook! I don't know where this North/South pissing contest came from but....the war ended a long time ago. How about people just concede that on both fronts there can be good cooking. Different for sure,but equally good. Nobody is always going to like or appreciate everything but the blanket stereotypes are just sad and don't reflect well on anyone.
Well said! Hate to get into those kind of contests without a raincoat!
Your Canadian. You wouldn't understand. Actually, if anyone is not from the South they can't understand.
We cook European in the North. You cook African American in the South. Basically, we prepare the food of our ancestors, and you cook the food that was prepared for your American ancestors by their slaves. If you're white, you can't take any credit for Southern food.
Stupidest comment I've read in a long time. Thanks for the laugh. LOL
I'm a 43 yr old white girl from Southeast Texas, right on the TX/LA border...we grew up hearing what we were eating was 'poor folks food', or 'black folks food'. My parents grew up poor, and their parents grew up DIRT poor, and these people could turn a whole lot of "what?" into a whole lot of delicious. A lot of it was killed/caught/trapped/picked/fished and cooked that same day...lots of fresh veggies, and ohmygod, those beans...my mama made a big ol' pot of pinto beans every weekend, and we did laundry and chores while the beans slowly turned into heaven. Hot water cornbread, cast-iron cornbread, hand rolled dumplings for chicken and dumplings on Sundays, fried pork chops, round steak beaten half to death and smothered in onions and gravy, chicken fried steak with cream gravy, lord have mercy, that food was awesome. My friends from the 'big city' of Beaumont would come eat with us, and be amazed. I couldn't believe that what we ate was so different from what they ate, just 20 miles away. Greens, grits, shrimp&grits, rice dressing, etc. I slowly came to realize over many years and travels that our food was just a big ol' amalgamation of southern/soul/creole/cajun food, and I have embraced it fully. Every time I cook cornbread in the cast iron skillet I inherited from my grandmother, I feel an immense sense of peace, pride, and connection to my family. And if you don't put bacon grease in the cast iron skillet and let it get really smoky before you pour the cornbread batter in, then it just won't be the same. It's all good! It's got most food beat to hell and back, and I'm so proud to be carrying on those traditions, even though my husband certainly isn't out there checking the fishing line or gutting a deer so we can have backstrap. I miss that the most, since you can't buy it anywhere, you have to go kill it–the deer meat. YUM! Long live Southern/Soul food cooking, however you personally define it.
Southern food is not all fat and fried food. What Southern cooking means to me is a hearty meal, cooked usually slowly while everyone else is at work, containing meat and at least two vegetables; along with homemade bread whether it be corn bread or biscuits, (or on special occasions yeast rolls). The meals were planned with care based on what was in the pantry and what was ready to eat in the garden. I consider myself qualified to comment as I was raised on some of the best of Southern cooking from my mother and my grandmother.
Southern Food is a Family affair. It's not grease, collards, grits vs. rice, one gravy over another, it's family. There are at least 3 different types of barbecue in just Georgia and the Carolinas, All are "southern" and one isn't better than the other. Tradition is everything. What you remember your grandmother (and her cook) fixing for dinner (not to be confused with supper) is your Southern. Over the years, we've learned healthy Southern. Maybe less grease, but the same Traditions.
I think part of the reason why this "foodie" event has met with such debate is the nature in which the food was prepared and the content. For Southerners, my self included, part of the flavor and taste of the food comes from knowing personally the hands that have made it. It comes from walking in on grandaddy mid arm deep in a bowl of chitlins explaining why using every bit of the pig is important. Part of the pleasure of eating a slice of pound cake comes from laughing as granma walks around with flour on her face. It's knowing and having a relationship with the people creating your food. If the folks at the supper had all met the chef, hung out with him in the kitchen, helped taste the sauce, perhaps it would have resonated more with many Southern viewers.
Another important factor that appears to be missing is the simplicity of ingredients. With Southern cuisine, we use simple straight forward ingredients, preferably at least half of which we can pluck from our garden out back, or that we just got from the neighbor down the street. It appeared as if many of the cooking methods and recipes were complex affairs which certainly gave a generous nod to Southern cuisine, but that took it to another level of complexity that is not found in many Southern kitchens. To be sure, we do have complex recipes. I've got an old cake recipe that I got from my old neighbor's mimi, that has over 20 ingredients, but this is the exception, not the rule. Not to drag up old history, but the South has been faced with financial stress for over a hundred years and that taught us to make much of little and create miracles from what we had. So we learned to make great food from simple ingredients.
I did appreciate the focus of farm fresh ingredients, and relationships with the farmers. Perhaps this was a bit larger scale than what I experienced as a little girl. For me, it was the lady down the street who had the best peach tree would trade us for the insane amounts of okra we grew and on an on. The food we cook and share with the folks that we like and love comes from our own gardens and plots. We are involved in the food from the moment it begins its life cycle, 'til we wash it off of the dining room table.
Perhaps if the folks had been out digging up the carrots themselves, perhaps if they had been shooting the breeze with the chef and his staff, maybe then it would ring a bit more authentic. Either way, I appreciated the nod to Southern cuisine and I am sure that the food was delicious and a real pleasure to eat.
I agree with Whitaker above, that the fantastic vegetable dishes that the south prepares should be given ample space and attention on a Southern Appreciator's plate. Meat is expensive, so there were often meals when meat wasn't available, or bacon was used. (So to the person who said bacon is for breakfast, I have to say that in the Southeast, where I'm from, anytime you needed a saute lubricant, bacon was an option.) As the the Barbeque, well, that's such a touchy subject that is so complex in the south, I think it's best that folks leave that topic for another day. And yes, a cast iron skillet is a MUST for true flavor.
As the the biscuit challenge, maybe if you tried involving your husband in the biscuit making process? I'm bettin' that when he ate his memamaw's biscuits, he helped in some fashion. Also, send him out side into the cold for a few minutes then greet him with a biscuit, I PROMISE you, his feelings on your biscuits will change big time! Good Luck!
I'm from Alabama, but now live in Illinois. I miss southern food dearly. I was just back home last week and my favorite southern foods are: boiled peanuts, chess pie, and bbq turkey (shredded, with a vinegar sauce)
Cornbread soaked in collard green pot liquor, MMMmmmmmmmm.... One of my favorite southern combinations! Having been raised in the "Hostess city of the South" Savannah, GA, we are inundated with a plethora of fine southern cuisines in nearly every meal and many a great restaurants. I have found that all scrumptous southern meals have a base of salt, butter, any form of a milk or cream, some form of fatback, most notably bacon, fresh local meats or produce, and most importatnly, a whole lotta love! For those looking for a classy southern meal not the fried version try looking into the petit southern meals such as "Pecan and molasses crusted rack of lamb" or "Roasted chicken breast with squash casserole, local herbed goat cheese and a peach-sweet pepper jelly" both capture the southern flare with an upbeat taste of elegance! At any rate, we as southerners do get a bad rap for our fried over indulgence, diabetic laced desserts, and/ or recipes of unfathomable ingredients.
By the way, on that bit in the piece on rolling and beating and patting biscuit doughs: too much handling! The best biscuit is one where the dough just barely comes together, and then you let it sit for a bit. Roll it out as quickly and efficiently as you can - don't touch! - and cut it and bake it. You need to keep those globs of fat separate from the flour, so you get tender layers instead of hockey pucks.
It all revolves around the cornbread. Never have I had real cornbread in a restaurant (Crackerbarrel included) that does justice to real Southern cornbread. I have lived in Alabama all of my life and that cake like yellow stuff everybody calls cornbread aint cornbread.
All good comments! Not only is Southern food about the heart and love (not to mention the bacon grease) put into the style of cooking, but it is also about time. Life in the South, especially deep South, is lived in a much slower pace. Altho, much sped up over the last decade, the grandma era took time and attention to the details. These things are skipped over in the 'multi-tasking' generation of today and actually not valued much any more,,,,until it comes to trying to duplicate just the right taste. As stated, given the right ingredients and right recipe,,,,it is just how you hold you tongue :-)
Your Southern Food piece is a joke. First, It should not have been held in Atlanta, which now is at best a suedo Southern,faux Yankee urbane community. . . The place to which Yankees migrate and claim to be Southern. In the filmclip I saw not one black-eyed pea nor did I see pepper sauce on the table. Your producers should have picked the Mississippi Delta towns of Greenville or Greenwood. It is true that Southerners lean toward fatty and fried foods, but the real heart of the Southern noontime meal (called dinner in the real south) is many vegetable varieties, preferably cooked with salt meat.
I had to laugh at the "secret supper" video. All these pretentious people talking about down-home country goodness of southern food. The simplicity, the soul...the lard. And there they are eating it artfully plated in a high-end, white-table-cloth restaurant, while the non-farmers speak in reverent tones and good wine is sipped from crystal stemware.
Did no one remark on the irony?
Southern food is a mixture of all the different cultures. French, African, Irish, German, Native American... to name a few. Brunswick Stew for instance is loosely based on a Native American stew made from roasted squirrel, corn, and lima beans. Okra in a recipe hints at African origins. No one in America has ever really stayed in one place so people take their favorite recipes with them wherever they go and these tend to evolve over time. That is how Southern cuisine was born and that's what keeps it vibrant. Nothing will ever compare to the food you were raised on and that is different for each person, region, and family. Isn't that wonderful?
I was born in Mississippi, my mom is from Kentucky of Irish and Native American ancestry and I was raised in the Florida panhandle so I have my personal definition of Southern food. I also appreciate Northern foods because my Dad's side of the family is from Maine. No one is winning the healthy food prize thank God. Americans just need to move more and eat less, hard as that is to do.
You'd knock your kid off the stool to get more of my dad's sausage gravy, and I ain't kidding...
Southern cooking is poor man's food. The majority in the agrian South didn't have money – they made the best with what they had. It's also high fat/high caloric to keep people going in the fields til sundown. The best recipes have three things in common: butter, salt, and sugar. Feel free to add in onion, apple cider vinager, and cayenne pepper at will. You want Southern cooking, visit http://www.chitterlings.com/.
Thanks, y'all.
Wow.
A bunch of mostly snobbish "well-to-do" White people sitting around drinking fine Bourbon and great White Wine and eating picturesque dishes of food on extremely fine table-ware that was prepared by chefs -all of which the average piece of racist trailer-park white trash up on here -like the IDIOT "WearingGrey" whom I wish would choke to death on one of his "biscuits VERY SOON- could NEVER even afford or begin to prepare let alone even pronounce and you call that "southern" food.
Amazing.
You might want to look out your trailer window. Looks like a cross is burning.
Southern cooking IS fattening, providing carbs and protienfor the po' folks who were working 12 hours a day in the fields–white and black people. As a girl, I had to leave my grandma's house when she cooked chitlins'. But I was thrilled when my uncle brought me a "balloon" make from pig intestines. Pigs were killed in the fall when the cool temps prevented spoilage of the meat before it could be salted and hung in the smoke house.
If you ate Southern, you recognized what was on your plate and it was considered a lovely presentation without a lot of fancy stacking! And all the butter (home churned) swimming on top of the serving bowls.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it! And don't call it Southern if you don't know what you are talking about!
I'm from Alabama and adore Southern food. Of course, that's why were all so happy and fat. ;)
God Save the South!
I'll take my biscuits over your toast any day of the week.
If you're so misinformed to think any sort of Mexican dish is not Southern or not Texan...ask the descendants of over 10K Hispanic-Confederates who fought to keep YOUR descendants out Dixie.
I'll keep my allegiance to the South and my grits. You can keep your your revolving dictators in Washington DC and your pourage.
"All we ask is to be let alone."
Wow.
A bunch of mostly snobbish "well-to-do" White people sitting around drinking fine Bourbon and great White Wine and eating picturesuqe dishes of food on extremely fine table-ware that was prepared by chefs -all of which the average piece of trailer-park white trash could NEVER even afford or prepare let alone pronounce- and you call that "southern" food.
Amazing.
My reaction, too. I was floored.
Oh I forgot to post this:
If a place doesn't serve sweet tea, it's not a proper Southern restaurant and I don't care how good the food is. Tea where you add your own sugar is NOT sweet tea.
Fortunately I was brought into this world by 2 people from the hills of East Tennessee where my mother God Bless Her became one fine southern cook. I was Raised on Biscuits and Gravy, along with home canned sausage, and canned ham and believe me you ain't ate till you've enjoyed fried potatoes and ham.Now I was born and raised in Baltimore Md. But always had southern cooking on the table.No Taco's or things like that, and Mom always got her flour in Tennessee and brought it back because "you can't make a Good Biscuit from city flour" LOL. The flour always had to be White Rose and I had several biscuits with sausage gravy this morning, I've been going to Mom's every saturday morning for breakfast since i left home.Nothing like Mom's biscuits I tell Ya, She can whip up a pan of biscuits so fast you would swear they were'nt homemade. They don't make those kinda girls much anymore.Southern Cooking' Ain't nothing like it....
Your Mom is a special Lady,Indeed. Give her a Big Kiss from all of us Eatocracy Posters.
I was born, bred, raised, still living in Louisiana and have traveled the world quite a bit more than most. I know what Southern food is and compare it to other types of food. People not from the South usually have no clue what Southern food is supposed to taste like. Just because a place claims to serve Southern food doesn't mean that's what you'll get. If your in the South and need to eat lunch, talk to the locals and ask where to get a good "plate lunch". You won't be going to a chain like Cracker Barrel.
I see no sweet tea, therefore I reject this meal. Also, the kinds of things you see them making in this 'secret dinner'...you're not going to find them in any small town restaurant or made by an actual southerner. The best kind of southern food is found in people's homes. I wouldn't go to a restaurant like that if you were looking for something authentic.
southern cuisine ? american cuisine ? lmao . nothing in this country is its own. prove me wrong. it all has french asian , italian influences . but even those can be traced back even further . good cuisine is about having little an doing a lot with it . southern cooking is more of a south american blend of Caribbean , an french. an possibly new england , with all the gravy . so to take claim to a style of food for any one is rather silly. just eat be merry , an share .
Being from the South (yes, we capitalize it down here) I think it's interesting and a bit sad that the South gets a bad rap on just about everything until it becomes kitsch... When all the snow birds flock down for the winter they see what it's all about and when they go back north claim their findings for their own while still kicking the progenitors of such truck to the curb...sad really. I remember the first time I said the word 'fatback' in the presence of my NW born wife, she was appalled by the description but soon became addicted after a taste of my mom's green beans.
IdaFritz... your comments are really sick and indicative of the bigoted feeling that erudite northerners have of the South. In your quest to extol the virtues of your all-inclusive attitudes you show your inside truth, and from what I see, it ain't pretty. I have lived most my life in the South and been to towns so small you'd miss them if you blink (I grew up in a town of 410 people) and can say that you do no know what you are talking about.
Sorry if the truth offends you, but my experiences included being threatened with arrest for simply walking down the sidewalk in Biloxi Mississippi and talking with my black friend, during the sixties. That sort of thing is what is sick, and travelling around the country in the 50 years since, listening to white southerners talk when no blacks are around, I can say with certainty that racism is alive and healthy in the modern day south. When someone holds a mirror up to you and you see ugliness, maybe it's time for you to change.
First off, qualify your experience, do not talk about what happened 50 years ago like it happened yesterday, second, people of one race talking negatively about another race when they are not around isn't exclusive to the South. You wanting to bring this issue up in the context of a food article is rather telling of your bias; please keep it to yourself, choose another forum to bring your soapbox.
Racism exists everywhere, only the races and ethnicities vary. You are just looking for racism from Southernerns because of some isolated incident 50 years ago. I have never experienced what you are talking about in Mississippi.
Good food, food cooked to perfection from the proper ingredients, depends on where you grew up. Some foods I consider good filler from the dumpster, others swear are the closest thing to heaven. I hate lobsters, steak, pastries,cheese, wine, and all sorts of vegetables, when they aren't prepared just the way I want them, otherwise they're grea,t except for lobster, I have never had a lobster that I considered worth eating, even in New England. As far as who has hospitality, I've been in many small southern towns where you best not go unless your skin coloring is the same pale shade as mine, but never have run into that problem in small northern towns, even in Hayden Idaho where that neo-nazi aryan church was, the locals are more accepting of differences than most of the south that I've experienced.
and a little post-dinner cleanup was as much a part of the meal as the food itself. for the guys, going out in the back and shooting the bull after cleaning up. the Meal is really just a central part of The Experience. The food is great, but there is a lot more to look forward to when you get invited to Granny's for dinner. trying to narrow that down to something you can write on an index card and file is simply impossible.
Inmansc, I remember eating at my grandmother's house in Alabama. No quick dinners there. All meals were accompanied by "visiting". Usually done while shelling peas on the back porch. It was the experience of creating the food and the camaraderie involved as much as it was the food.
God bless all the folks mentioned in the article, clearly selected based on their public relations budgets, but if you live here, you know that the best southern cooking is not done in any restaurant but at home. Eat all the chicken and dumplings in all the restaurants you want, then get an invitation to sit down at my Mama's house in Kingsland, GA for the real thing. but heres a hint: Southern food is best enjoyed in southern homes amid southern hospitality, something that can not be duplicated elsewhere in the nation- thats the part you cant get onto the recipe.
AM, feel better? Obviously some of these posts touched a nerve and honestly some were mean spirited. I think there's great food anywhere in the U.S. I just love sampling regional specialties. I live in southwest Colorado now but am a native Texan. I think the earlier posts had it right...Texas is so big, it's sort of it's own culture with many different cuisines. However, traditional southwest is not as prevalent as you might think. The Tex-Mex influence is much stronger. I sure miss great Tex-Mex. I'm not a huge fan of traditional southwest. Guess I'm too influenced by what I grew up with. Btw, I have an uncle who refers to the Civil war as "the war of northern aggression.". I just smile and shake my head.
Wow there are a lot of ignorant and hateful people one here. To the prejudice northerners: not all southerners are stupid. Texas is not the south – it's the southwest. Learn your country! No one has a monopoly on good food. Some food in the south is good, some food in the north is good. And most areas of the north do NOT have good pizza (save the NYC metro area). To the xenophobic southerners: there are a lot of fast food chains that started in the south – and you seem to be eating a lot of it, otherwise those chains wouldn't still exist – you cannot blame others for this. All your problems are not due to "transplants." Southerners seem to have an inexplicable problem of blaming others for their problems. Southerners on the whole are significantly more overweight than northerners as well, and the cuisine in general tends to be A LOT less healthy. And "Yankee" is not a dirty word. You lost the war – GET OVER IT. And the south certainly does not have a monopoly on hospitality (evidenced partly by these comments) – just look at the hate crimes and other crimes so prevalent in the south (yes – the rate of crime is higher overall in the south than the north – deal with it – this is factual, not an opinion). Plus research shows that while northerners may say nasty things to your face, southerners say it when the person leaves. That's not hospitable, that's cowardly. And don't pretend that food elsewhere isn't made with "love." What makes it southern is it's made with love? What??? LOL. Personally, making unhealthy food is not love to me, but whatever.
As a Southerner who grew up cooking with my mother and grandmother, I know that if our recipes and techniques are not passed down to each generation, they will be lost forever. I'm sorry, but Paul Deen's cooking is not so much what we find on our tables as it is something that we find when we go to a "Southern" restaurant. Someday, Miss Deen will learn that you can't throw extra butter in something and call it Southern. There are only two cookbooks that I have found that I would turn to for TRUE Southern cooking, "Old-Time Southern Cooking" and "Mama Dip's Kitchen". (My apologies to the Deens and the Neeleys) In most cases I only use them to refresh my memory (especially OTSC). All of my family knows, in case of fire grab my recipes first. (I'm not kidding).
Reading most of these posts is such a treat! Reminds me of my dear departed Mama and her fried catfish and hush puppies. And her biscuits? Get out! My brother swears she must have had a secret ingredient that never got written down. It's a nice reminder of my roots. Thanks, y'all!
LMAO I saw that...What the h***?? What is the stroll?? Had the cocktail party last night...I only lasted an hour there..boring
Well,WD and I will travel to the U.K.-dress in Victorian costumes,and Stroll down the streets doing who knows what. NOT! Glad you schmoozed with the big wigs and everything went o.k. Felicia sounds a little....Kinky?
Victoria costumes....sounds...fun...no not really. lol Yeah Felicia is barking up the wrong tree! LOL God,that party was soooooo lame. I forgot a secret santa gift and had to run to Walgreens LOL Whoever got stuck with it will think it's the lamest gift ever LOL Oh well....if it seems like no thought went into it...it's because none did.
Martini in 5 minutes. Don't wanna tie this one up and get yelled at.
Well good morning RH
Found out what the Stroll was and some girl named Felisha left you a message on TJames thread.
Notice that the word "lard" appears in the second sentence. I live there. Southern cooking is like English cooking but with more lard.
Southern cooking is not one cuisine. It maybe from the seafood areas like New Orleans or from the middle of Alabama. It is what people all over this country did in its early years; make do with what you had. I grew up in the north in the 50’s. My dad was a factory worker and there were six of us in the family. My mother made a lot of soup for dinner because soup bones were cheap and had meat on them that she could use for sandwiches. We had potato pancakes because there were a lot of potatoes around. We had our own chickens so egg dishes were plentiful.
If you go to an expensive Italian restaurant you might find a costly soup called Pasta Foozle. In reality Italian mothers made many versions of this in this country. It basically was what was left in the refrigerator on Friday. Beans were always around because they were cheap. Leftover vegetables and some pasta completed the soup. Now it is gourmet.
Early Americans up into the 50’s had to make do with what was available. It was not until unions came along and salaries started going up did the middle class have funds to expand their culinary cuisines.
Actually, Minestrone is the "clean out the fridge" soup. I have no idea what pasta Fazoole is but, Pasta e Fagioli is an amazing bean and pasta soup. However, like all...soup it is an inexpensive dish. Unless you delve into bisque,Bouilliabaise etc. The point is I suppose that simple fresh ingredients,regardless of geographical beginnings make the best food. I despise over handled,"architectural" food. Simplicity is king. Now...molecular gastronomy....lol the biggest scam to empty wallets I've ever seen. But, the sheeple will pay so what can you do.
Good Morning Sunshine!
and PROUD OF IT!!!!! Just gonna get that outta the way :). Not normally a poster, but I had to respond to this.
Re BBQ: Ah, the eternal debate–beef or pork? My answer; yes please and add some sausage on the side! Though it's all about the wood and the sauces for me–gotta be oak or mesquite and the sauce can't be too vinegary. Add on a heap of my Mom's potato salad, baked beans some raw onion, and white bread and that is a summer bbq. And yes, the sweet tea is requirement; a good glass should make your teeth hurt and if it was sun brewed well then so much the better.
Soul Food: It's the heart and the passion and that secret somethin' that just makes Soul Food sing. I can spout off my family's barrage of recipes that are essentials, but my fondest memories of soul food come from a little hole in the wall dive in Nacogdoches TX called Aubrey's Cafe. This was Soul Food at its finest and it was the place we stopped every time my dad came up to visit. The chicken fried steak was crisp and not greasy at all (Hint to the Yankees on the Board: If your chicken fried steak is greasy, then it's done wrong. The crisper the breading is the fresher it is.) The mashed potatoes still had chunks of skin in there and gravy was just spiced right. And the okra was not that Cracker Barrel stuff this was breaded light and sliced thin. And then, there were the biscuits and the tea. . . .Oh my Lord Above, there was the tea. 2 glasses were the minimum and those counted as dessert between me Dad. :) And Aubrey knew you by name when you came in too.
Southern Food is comfort food y'all. It was and is simple, unpretentious and above all all about family and friends. Thanksgivings at my Grammy's in Arkansas were always followed by long talks on the deck with coffee and her pecan pie. Then there was the fresh venison at my aunt's that we took on road trips home to Houston. And if the cousins bough their guitars, there were jam sessions :) Good memories all, and I think next week there will be a visit to Norma's. :) Y'all made hungry with this.
And if you think biscuits are hard. You better check around and see how many people can make REAL SOUTHERN SWEET TEA!! No matter how many places I get tea to drink nothin compares to my grandma's sweet tea.
WTF?! I am not sure what *to* call it, but whatever you had there at this "Secret Supper" absolutely is NOT Southern food or cooking. It looks like it was tasty, but it wasn't US Southern. Southern France, perhaps. Buncha durn pretentious Yankees... :)
My grandma says the secret to biscuits is cooking them in a great big ole iron skillet and I believe her. I remember waking up before daylight to eat breakfast before going to work on the farm and there would always be biscuits and gravy with all the fixins. And there wouldn't be a crum left on the table because we knew we weren't coming back from work until supper time.
Though both are very tasty, Texas cooking is really not Deep South cooking. Texas is a class unto itself! And, it varies by the five distinctive regions just within the one state! There is the deep East Texas which encompasses the Southern style plus Louisiana; North Texas which is a blend of ALL the other regions; South Texas, which is Tex-Mex, of course; Far West Texas which is more New Mexico plus lots of beef; and the Panhandle which is all about beef. And barbeque is to be had in every area! We Texans refer to Southern cooking as "home cooking." Meaning, it is sort of what our mothers used to make - fried chicken, meat loaf, black-eyed peas, okra, fresh corn, etc.
OM good gravy – my mother did the cucumber/onion salad in vinegar – I LOVE it .
To bubbah vee all that fried okra like cracker barrel is frozen pre-breaded – they just drop it in the fry unit – SMACK. Yeppers fried porkchops in gravy my mother made in the cast iron skillet – whats BBQ beef? beef? whaddat? BBQ is PORK – sorry Texas – but its all about da pork – pulled or chopped- I like either , though prefer pulled.
Couple of comments back – always remember the Neese's Liver Pudding growing up . My gram liked souse – or sousemeat – however you might refer to it. I havent seen that in years.
Not too sure I get totally down with all that – but I am up for fried chicken, fried porkchops, mash n gravy, mac n cheese, fried green tomatoes, black eyed peas, shrimp n grits, fried oysters n grits, hoppin john, turnip greens, collard greens, sweet corn, fried okra, lima beans and always always always that sweet iced tea – it is in fact the southern wine.
Those chefs are just trying to be cute with their trendy little takes on southern food. Its BS – its just like also if I hear the term "deconstructed" one more time I will jump out of my skin.
Make it real chefs – whats I heard – It aint real
Sparkle, you've got to STOP. You're making me hungry. What you say is so true. And, can you believe that
"Sweet Sue" makes chicken and dumplins in a can? NEVER. And, dumplins are not "dropped" wads of dough. Dumplins are made early and rolled out thin on the counter, and covered with a tea towel. They spend the morning drying while the hen is simmering. Meanwhile, the tea bags are steeping in a covered saucepan. That reminds me, the tea bags are calling..............
Butter, Thats what makes food Southern, lots and lots of butter. mmmmmm
Purple hull peas nearly cooked to a mush. Fried okra....not that awful breaded stuff like Cracker Barrell has. Sliced tomatoes from a family garden. Boiled okra and tomatoes...all fresh ;-). Fried porkchops. Just to name a few. BBQ pork, not beef, slow cooked over a bed of charcoal to the point that the outer layers get a little chewy. Now THAT could make you slap your momma! Yes mam. Oh, and dont forget about the sweet tea.
We always said that it was so good, it would make you smack your mama.
And if it's REALLY good, then you put your foot in it!
Forgot to mention, too. You can't make clabber with homogenized milk – has to be whole, unprocessed to death milk.
Hats off to NCBoy for mentioning the dripping canister on stove top. An absolute essential. I didn't see anyone mention keeping a container of clabber on the counter, though. That's what my mom and grandmom and all female relatives did (first half of the 1900s). That, too, was essential for biscuits in my family.
But to RealTexan, no, Texan is not altogether Southern. Only the East Texas area and cities bordering on Louisiana could be considered Southern. From there, going west, the rest of the state is progressively Western. El Paso is a southern city? Sonoma? Big Bend? Never.
in response to "Love me some liver mush"
I love Neese's although I always referred to it as Liver pudding. My grandmother would fry it and serve it at breakfaster with eggs and toast.
I was born in NC and grew up on all kinds of flavored grits, liver mush and eggs, greens & vinegar, sh*t on a shingle, and many other southern greats! Now I live in CA and I gotta tell ya... there ain't no grits over here, nor liver mush. You can only get Liver mush by name in NC from Neese's. It's a shame too, cause these CA natives are hooked on fish tacos.
Hmm, well, let's see here. Since I live in the south I have had my share of southern food. The people that say southern food is nothing but grease and lard have never had a southern home cooked meal. All they are talking about is some crap they probably had in a restaurant. I will tell you this, there is not one restaurant here in the south that I prefer to eat southern food in. If I want southern food, I cook it myself. Southern food is greasy, ha ha, that is so lame. So I guess a philly steak n cheese is more healthy or how about a Reuben, I guess that's better too. It's just funny to hear people making comments on southern food that have never really had it, but they think they have.
Oh, BTW, I'm not overweight either. Southern food greasy, give me a break.
Homemade pancakes with butter and sorghum syrup hmmmm and in the summer, we didn't call it supper without fresh green onions, a bowl of milk gravy, a big piece of sweet cantalope and a tall glass of ice cold tea to go with it. And tea with water from a deep soft water well is heavenly. And don't forget peaches straight off the tree with fresh heavy cream for desert.
My Dad's side of the family is from the South (VA, TN, KY) and I have worked closely with some of the most notable chefs in the country. I appreciate all cuisines when prepared properly and appropriately, but I must say that there is nothing better than country ham and biscuits with sorghum for breakfast, fried catfish for dinner (or as my Dad would say, "supper") and a slice a Derby Pie for dessert!
Texas is southern. I was born and raised in Texas and having traveled all over the US would not live anywhere else. I have friends in Italy (the country) who have done the same and feel the same. We ate what we raised in the garden. Green beans, corn, peas, squash, okra, porter tomatoes, turnips etc. We raised our own beef, had fresh milk, fresh eggs and homemade biscuits for breakfast along with homemade butter and jams made from wild plumbs, fig and grapes. Gravy was served at every meal Daddy was home for and instead of candy; I had plumbs, figs, peaches, pears, pecans and black walnuts to name a few. Corn bread was always made in a cast iron skillet (if there was any left it was broke up in a glass of milk for a snack before bed) and we ate pan tators not french fries. We didn't buy cakes, ice cream, pies etc. because they were made from scratch at home. I didn't learn to use a measuring cup until high school and I stopped using one as soon as I got out of that class. My parents and grandparents were farmers and the food was fresh and never bland. We didn't have fancy food and I still don't serve it myself, but everything was made with love. No one in my family is over weight and most have lived to be at least 80. Yes, we have Tex Mex here but my generation and the ones before me weren’t raised on it. The Hispanic people we knew didn't cook Texmex. They cooked the way they learned in Mexico. Texas is a BIG state so naturally our food is diverse as we have so many different blends of cultures here but it is still southern food, southern manners and southern roots. We cook what we have at hand, the fresher the better, and we put our heart into everything we cook and eat. And at 50 years old I cannot name one single person from anywhere who has ever thought of my cooking as being bland and fattening and I cook as I was taught, like my parents (yes my Dad could cook too) and my grandparents before me. And as long as Texas in at the end of that arrow that is pointed down (the one with the big S on it) it is the south.
This is an interesting thing to debate. (I'm sorry I wasn't around yesterday for this post.)
I personally think that it's not about the food itself so much as the ideal behind the food. People have a certain vision of southern food that comes into their mind when they talk about it. It's that down-home, family gathering, unpretentious and simple, but filling and delicious reputation. So when that ideal alters too much, it throws people for a loop. When it becomes fancy instead of hearty, it ceases to be southern cooking and becomes something else entirely. Southern-inspired, perhaps, at best.
But for me, I think it's good to mix it up a little. We get mainstream exposure to many types of foods by taking the general concept and altering it to suit the tastes of the audience. (Just think about mainstream American Chinese food. About 90% of it you would never see on a plate in China, or even in the home of someone who immigrated from China.) Altering it to suit the (for lack of a better term, though I dearly wish there was one) foodie crowd gives them what they want, an innovative, fresh and delicious meal, while still exposing them to elements of the South.
As long as we don't replace true southern cooking, both the food and the ideal, with stylized southern cooking, I think there's room in the world for both.
The last sentence captures it all.
I'm a Southerner by birth, not locale. I live in Southeast Florida (aka South New York), but my Southern roots run Dixie deep – all my people are from LA: Lower Alabama and the Florida panhandle. I just returned from Thanksgiving there, getting my fix of family and big food: fried mullet (and its roe), flounder, Apalachicola oysters, cornbread dressing, fried corn, squash, fried okra (yes – burnt to caramelization in an iron skillet), fancy cakes, all the pies (I brought my mother's pound cake and it was devoured) – those are tastes of home to me. Soul food? You bet – for a Southern soul. Collards, mustard and turnips, rutabega...the list is endless. In summer, I yearn from straight from the garden fried green tomatoes, with field peas (with snaps) and speckled butterbeans, crispy corn bread, pulled pork from my uncle's smoker. That's fine eatin'. But food evolves – just talk to an Italian and you'll see how Italian-Americans feel about all the dressing up Italian food's undergone. It's important to keep our heirloom recipes alive (I keep printing Southern recipes as often as possible and sharing every one I can with my web readers – touting my great iron skillets, too.) But there's room for grits with blue cheese, and balked pecan-crusted catfish rather than just cornmeal dusted fried varieties. I love my pork roast cooked with a touch of garlic and thick fig preserves (if I can keep from eating them on my hot biscuits). I bake chicken as often as fry it (but of course, on top of cornbread dressing!). I'm don't feel I'm tossing away traditions – just adding to them.
Maybe the reason why your husband doesnt care for you cooking is b/c 1, ur not making real southern food. You're making southern food & putting a "square plate flare" (thats what i call fancy restaurants, they always use square plates). When they say food is made with love, what they really mean, is tie spent with the family & friends to make the food really pop!
To richard simmons: You are a moron of epic proportions...
Southern Food is what was on the table during those times when your fondest memories of the south were burned into your memory. Whether it was fresh fried catfish cooked in the tractor shed after harvesting tons of grainfed fish on the Grand Prarire, bolony and vidialia onion sandwiches on the tailgate while working in the Arkansas rice fields, duck gumbo at the Duck Gumbo cook off in Stuttgart, fried chicken and kiebasa cooked in your grandmothers kitchen or red beans and rice. I think Southern food is as much as where you eat it and why as it is the ingredients and how it is cooked.
Oh my word....just reading about all this good Southern food is making me hungry. I could go for some good salt pork gravy and home made biscuits right now, along with some collared greens and field peas....San Diego born but my heart, and my ancestry, is from North Carolina. Time to take a trip out east.
all I'm sayin' is that a down south biscuit is heaven. I've always lived in the north and never miss a chance to indulge my one southern delicacy when I travel south. Biscuit, no gravy and a little bit of butter. Mmmmmm.
I was grew up a few miles north of Lexington, Kentucky and I will never forget the wonderful home-cooked meals we had every day – three meals a day. My favorite was chicken and dumplings with cornbread dressing (stuffing), deviled eggs, fresh green beans and onion/cucumber salad (marinated in vinegar and sugar). We had homemade bread (biscuits or cornbread) with every meal and the entire family sat down at the table to eat together.
I think the reason Southern cooking is so good is because it is a tradition that has been perfected and handed down for generations. My mother and grandmothers didn't use cookbooks – they knew how to make every dish as they learned from their mothers and grandmothers.
It makes my mouth water to remember all the wonderful dishes we enjoyed (besides chicken and dumplings):
Great Northern beans slow cooked with ham hocks served with homemade Chow-Chow relish and sliced onion
fried apple or peach pie
homemade banana ice cream
country ham with beaten biscuits
wilted fresh spring lettuce with onion and a dressing made of vinegar, sugar and bacon drippings
rabbit stew
fried frog legs (sooo good)
The list could go on and on but I'll stop here.
I'm from Kentucky as-well. Reading your list of foods made me sooo hungry. Rabbit and dumplings thats what I want. Last weekend I made a Deer Roast with potatoes, carrots, onions, greens on the side, and mashed potatoes with homemade gravy from the roast. Nothing is better than fresh meat.
I forgot to mention in my other reply that a lot of our meat didn't come from the farm. We usually had one or two hogs and one cow for the year. The rest of the time we generally used meat we got from hunting or fishing. Deer, rabbit, grouse, quail, squirrel, turkey, catfish, small/large mouth bass. I remeber the first time I took my wife back home was for Thanksgiving and Deer season. She didn't believe I could really kill a deer just by walking out my mom and pops back door and into the woods about a hundred yards. So I took her with me. About thirty minutes later she was crying while I was field dressing an 8 pointer. Her cryin stopped after tasting that fresh deer tenderloin roast with some greens, and sweet cornbread.
I am a died in the wool Southerner. Born in NC, now living in Charleston, SC. First comments re the opening article. NO you cant outcook a ghost. I cannot duplcate my grandmother's or mothers biscuits, yeast rolls, pound cake, or apple pie. I come close on the mac and cheese and most others. I agree with much of whats said. I think very little of these trendy menu items they have come up with to represent Southern cooking. What are heirloom grits anyway? Give me a break – its gentrification and its not Southern cooking by any stretch. Southern cooking primarily stems from the heritage and culture that came from Africa. Southern cooking is about food that was prepared and cooking on working plantations, with ingredients grown right there. Yes – with love and care – but it has basically always been simple food (and not necessarily always fried). From collard greens, turnip greens, sweet potatoes, beet green salad, to delicious sweet cornbread. Corn ground into grits either on property or at a local or nearby mill. Pork raised and butchered on site, and green beans seasoned with that bit of fatback or hamhock. Charleston being on the coast, we have an abundance of seafood. That always factors into the local food culture. If the husband was a fisherman, then it was whatever he brought home from the days catch (but that is largely true of any seaport). In the 1800's rice was one of our big exports – so food featured that – hoppin john being classic (blackeyed peas and rice). Grits are dirt cheap – hence the shrimp n grits (which you can get here at restaurants for breakfast, lunch, or dinner). Give me REAL Southern cooking any day – country ham, shrimp n grits, black eyed peas, sweet corn on the cob, cornbread, peach cobler and sweet iced tea. Don't insult me with pickeled shrimp and quick-cured trout and try to pass that off as Southern. And YES – bacon rules for dinner!!!
Sorry to comment late about remarks made up top but...as someone born in Mississippi, who then lived in Southern California and now resides in New York, I guess I'm what some people with nothing better to do than toss around outdated war slang would call a "psuedo Yankee". I was raised on Southern style cooking, and I married a Texan who brings his own aspect of Southern style food to our house. I love Southern style cooking, in all its aspects, from queso ONLY with Ro-Tel to a perfect chicken & cheddar biscuit from Time Out in NC! All of it is an amzing representation of the American South.
As far as this "yankeedoodle" nimrod, I think he had a point telling "shutup" to cram it, until he started accusing Yankess of bringing our "fast food" down south. Now THAT is a hoot and a holler!!! What kind of moron thinks that Middle America ISN'T the homeland of all that crap?! I live in Brooklyn, honey- we won't even let them build a WalMart here, try as they might. We don't do so hot with corporate crap. If you're going to toss mud from your little sewer, "yankeedoodle", maybe you should check out the place you're bad mouthing. You sound about as ignorant and uppity as "shutup" did, frankly.
I loved this article and can't wait to see more! Fixin' to try out some of these fancy dishes...
My Southern born and bred grandmother taught me how to cook from the age of three, and even though she is not here anymore, I remember her lessons well. Southern food can be classy but it is never pretentious. We serve what we know, which is what is farmed locally. Most importantly, for my Southern grandmother, cooking was an act of love. She might spend the entire afternoon baking pies, but that night when her family and friends savored them, I knew she felt incredible joy in sharing the fruits of her labor.
What a LOVELY sentiment! Your grandmother must have been proud of you. Your kind words & insight into this topic made my night.
I tried to find country ham in nothern Illinois two years ago. Folks in the grocery store didn't know what I was talking about. Went to SC for Thanksgiving and came back with packages of country ham biscuit slices. Had chicken n dumplins (sorry, but Sweet Sue) and biscuits with country ham for supper tonight. MMMMMM they was good eatin'!
I got hungry just reading the posts. My parents were from Tenn and Ark migrated to Texas and stayed. Rule at the dining table was I had to try it before I said I didn't like anything. Poke salad, mustard greens, collards, turnips and turnip greens, kale, pinto beans, friend okra and green tomatos. Country ham with red eye gravy, biscuits and chocolate gravy, grits, corn bread, fried cat fish. It all sounds good. Regarding the lady and her biscuits, try Pioneer Flour. I can't make anything with Gold Medal and I can't find White Lily. My parents used to bring White Lily back with them from vacations to Tennessee. Cooking anything is better in a cast iron skillet. I inherited my Great Grandma's chicken fryer and would not trade it for anything. I got my mom's skillets, dutch oven and the individual corn bread stick pans. Mom can't lift them anymore, I just invite her meals on weekends and holidays and she still gets to see her stuff. I use them every day.
After reading this, I HAD to make biscuits for supper, and let me tell you, those years of practice paid off! If they were any lighter, they woulda floated off the plate! My mawmaw woulda been proud of those catheads!
They wouldn't have floated to far. I have a butterfly net with a long handle and would have caught them and had them for my dinner and what was left been for supper. LOL
I am from Virginia, but have never heard of a cathead. What is it?
This article can be answered one way. It is food that makes you obese. It is a way of preparing meats that causes arterial aging. It is food that makes you die young. But it is so good tasting, it's worth losing a foot to diabetes.
You must not be able to control your eating, are fat and have lost a foot to diabete to make such an idiotic staement ....and actually post it!!! LMAO!!!!
Actually i'm into boxing. I eat only baked meats and steamed vegg. And I live in Canada. But it's all true. Deep fried, high fat foods, served in huge quantity reduce lifespan. There are no "facts" to counteract the truth. Diabetes is rampant in the south, as a result of horrible eating choices. No human needs to eat lard. Period.
stop picking on the south...food is served in large quantities all over the US AND CANADA, that doesn´t mean you have to eat it all, people have choices, to each thier own! As for your obsession about lard, its found in processed foods all over the world and yes, people eat it, big deal...you still sound like an undereduacated, biased idiot that obviously has a chip on thier shoulder when it comes to the south...Please do us southereners a favor and stay in Canada...eh?
Actually Krull, it is not the food that makes you obese.. Food has been here since beginning of time.
Being LAZY after eating food makes you obese.
Being a lifelong southerner from Mobile,Al,the best description of southern food is the ability to make a meal from almost anything you have in your cubbard or fridge.Cookbooks are more of a suggetion than a rule.If anyone from the south or anyone who has visited will notice no matter how many times a particular dish is cooked,it is never done the same way.I think improvising ,in my opinion,is what makes Southern food have a style all it's own.
sooo....i grew up with a half southern, half northen family and being in the southwas always my favorite place to be with my grandmother and the family all crammed in the kitchen...some trying to sneak sample, some trying to help "GaGa",my grandmother. Every day since i can remember she would sit in her rocking chair watching her soaps picking beans,shelling bean, husking corn..it was a daily ritual. There seemed to be too many pots on the stove all holding green beans or pole beans as we called them, with a big ham hock, fresh blackeyed peas simmered with onions, she would make the most incredible sweet corn in the pot you couldn't help but sneak bites and she's always yeel "STOP NOW! or there won't be any left for dinner!"...and the butterbeans were my favorite..although I hated pickin' em'!, potatoe salad was a given, always done with eggs and crumbled saltines, rice and gravy...REAL gravy from whatever meat she roasted that night...her fried chicken was amazing, and cubed steak was my favorite...deviled eggs, peach cobbler or any other fruit laying around she could throw in there...and the most butterrry to die for pound cake you ever bit into to...She used to freeze one or two for m to take back to my Dad up north after the holidays..of coarse it wasn't the same, but he never cared!!! She always made biscuits from scratch and the ones not eaten would be used for ham or baconand biscuits the next morning...and don't even get me started with a southern breakfast GOOD LAWD!
I would wake up to the scents of bacon, sausage, ham, eggs, coffee, cinnamon toast, cheese toast, and yes...biscuits...you always had to have fresh cut tomatoes from the garden and some kind of homemade jam to plop on your plate next to your eggs and kinda takes bites of it along with , well other stuff on the plate...grits were always on the stove, and i remember my favorite would be to take the eggs and grits and crumble bacon on top and eat it all together...and the fridge was never without sweet tea that had been made in the sun and if you ever did have to eat cereal uyou always used half pet milk and half whole milk...no if, ands or buts...so thats a small sample of how I remember REAL southern food...Thanks Gaga!!!
i forgot to mention her fried cornbread with okra.....and you had to dip it in ketchup...fatback...mmmm i love eating it right out of the frying pan, and chow chow...homemade chow chow that gaga made from scratch...oh...and Hillarys right about the not measuring and multiple cans of Crisco were always in the cupboard!!!!!
I'm from a teeny tiny town in Georgia, and I can tell you a few things about Southern food.
Southern cooking is a learned tradition that starts before you even realize it. From playing in the kitchen floor with your dolls or cars while your mawmaw makes Sunday dinner for the whole family (by whole family I mean aunts, uncles, cousins and everyone else). In my family this happened every week with out fail.
The older I got, the more I helped. I'd fetch ingredients from the pantry, open cans, stir gravy, etc. When it came time for me to cook for myself I really started paying attention and from my mawmaw, granny, and aunt miss alice I learned how to cook. That's when I learned that Southern Cooks, at least the ones I know, don't measure anything! It only takes about a hand full of crisco for my grannys famous biscuits...mawmaw says you just need enough sugar in her to die for banana pudding...and when my aunt miss alice taught me how to bake, well you just put in enough til it taste right , then mix it til it looks right, and cook it til it's just done. That's right, you can't just tell somebody how to be a Southern cook...you gotta show 'em.
Southern cooking takes time and you can't just skip the little steps. Some of the best Southern dishes are cooked low and slow. And Southern cooks don't mind taking the time to do it right so that it's good. We show alot of emotions with our cooking! Want to tell someone you're sorry that they lost a loved one? Send over a pan of dressing & gravy. Coworker just had a baby? Time for a casserole. Want to thank someone for helping you out when you needed a hand? Take them a banana pudding. Yes sir, Southern cooking is a labor of love! And I think it's the love (and fatback, sugar, or shortening) that makes Southern cooking the hot topic that it is today.
A few of my favorites: cabbage, pintos, cornbread (oh yeah, and cornbread ain't sweet), any kind of casserole, GRITS, fried squash potatoes & onions, dressing (not stuffing), anything fried, anything smoked, fat back, and anything left from my pawpaw's last canning before his stroke.
Very well said. I applaud you!
I just bought "gumbo (frozen) vegetables" for a beef soup recipe I found (http://recipes.health.com/recipes/10000001733670-vegetable-beef-soup). When I think of southern food, I think of kale, okra, grits, pecans, Cajun Cookin, and ham. There's a blend of southern cooking and seafood cooking along our Chesapeake Bay in Maryland that has resulted in some of the most to-die-for dishes – especially crab soups. As a song heard often now on Baltimore radio goes: "Eww, I want crabs for Christmas. Eww, only crabs will do. If, I get crabs for Christmas, my Christmas wish'll come true."
I'm from Kentucky and to me southern food is about love and tradition. Trying to replicate the biscuits and gravy your Mammaw made for you as a child and sharing it with your family. And partly being able to make a great meal with what little you might have to eat. There is nothing better than making a meal and knowing people appreciate and enjoy it. Do you save your bacon drippins? :)
Was there really a comment from the one and only Paula Deen? Paula -Totally a fan and would love to cook with you sometime!!!!
I'm not a fan of Paula Deen's. I'm from the south and I can't stand to hear her talk...her accent is over done. Her son's are cute though and her brother's restaurant in Savannah is great.
For those of you not fortunate enough to have granny's skillet, a good substitute can be bought @ Cracker Barrel. They sell skillets made by Lodge, in South Pittsburgh, TN. Google "cornbread festival" for info on a real southern good time every spring.
You can buy a Lodge skillet at Target, Walmart and Amazon.com, too. :-)
YES YES YES....true that!!!
I've picked up at least a dozen old Wagner & Griswold skillets at local junk stores; like Lodge, they are American-made, but are 70+ years old and smooth as glass. Even an old rusty, crusty cast iron skillet can be easily restored to it's former glory aslong as the iron itself isn't cracked and the piece isn't warped. My favorite one is a Griswold picked up for $10; I saw the exact same style/size one on eBay going for $130.
If you don't know what southern food is, you've never had it.
A real po' folks dish is This N That. A potato, an onion, some fresh okra, a green tomato, and a couple of yellow crook neck squash. Cut and mix together with cornmeal, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Fry in a cast iron skillet with your choice of fat until tender and lightly brown. OMG! A great way to us the remnants from the garden!
Fried Chicken?
Also, what about sweet potatoes? Sweet potato fries, sweet potato pie...
In Louisiana, you can mark the calendar by the food you eat. Red beans and rice on Mondays. Catfish and shrimp po boys on Fridays during Lent. Gumbo when the weather gets cooler (we even call it “good gumbo weather”). Jambalaya at church fundraisers on Sundays. Strawberry pie at the Strawberry Festival in Ponchatoula in April. Crawfish boils in the spring.
I grew up in the South, and yet I think the Louisiana South isn’t like the rest of the region. We have our own foods, our own holidays and parties. Hell, we even talk differently from the rest of the South. Any good Louisianan knows that potato salad on gumbo is heaven in a bowl, and when it comes to crawfish, you always gotta suck the heads.
Southern food to me is taking advantage of what’s cheap and local. Of taking such simple ingredients and making magic in the kitchen. It’s as much about the love you pour into the food as the ingredients you use. We love our food as much as we love God, the LSU Tigers, and the Saints—in other words, food is part of our religion down here.
I don't see much mention of bean soup (or "soup beans" as many in the mountains) call it. Cooked long and slow with ham, this is truly a favorite. More of an Appalachian/Southern border thing for cold winters. And what about Hashbrown Casserole? Just don't take Paula Deen's advice and put like a 1/3 cup of butter in on it. Yes, it will improve the flavor a bit, but nutritionally unnecessary!
Soup Beans, cornbread, fried taters, and a fresh green onion from th garden!!. MMM MMM Good.
This poem by Nikki Giovanni has been taped to my computer monitor forever. It evokes my Tennessee childhood food memories perfectly.
-------------
Knoxville Tennessee
I always like summer
Best
you can eat fresh corn
From daddy's garden
And okra
And greens
And cabbage
And lots of
Barbeque
And buttermilk
And homemade ice-cream
At the church picnic
And listen to
Gospel music
Outside
At the church
Homecoming
And go to the mountains with
Your grandmother
And go barefooted
And be warm
All the time
Not only when you go to bed
And sleep
Nikki Giovanni
Opinions are like a—holes everyone has one. The truth is Southern cooking is different by Region, State, City and County. We all use fresh ingredients that we grew or caught and yes we all had the same vegetables and meats, but things taste different depending on the soil they are grown and the spices used and fish taste better when you caught it yourself Y'all
American by birth. Southern by the grace of God!!!
Me too!
woooooohoooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I would post some pictures but CNN doesn't allow links in their post. :-/ Here are some of my favorite "Southern" dishes:
- Pralines
- Turkey Gumbo
- Cajun Blackened Chicken
- Crawfish Etouffee
- Cajun Boudin
- Shrimp Po-Boy
- Beignet's
- Bananas Foster
- Cajun Dirty Rice
- King Cake
All good dishs, Ben, but a really narrow focus to Cajun/Creole NOLA cooking. Most southerners to not make King Cake (some probably don't even know what it is), gumbo, etouffee,beignets, etc. Those are pretty much strictly Louisiana. Branch out for som Hoppin' John, Okra fritters, corn fritters, collard or turnip greens, pinto beans with cornbread and fried onions and potatoes, catfish and hushpuppies, the list goes on... As another poster said, Southern food is very regional.
Southern food to me is fried okra, greens (turnip or collard) with ham, corn pone (skillet fried cornbread), red eye gravy, black eyed peas with ham, and skillet fried chicken, all with hot pepper vinegar sauce. My family comes from south Georgia and my aunt has a farm where she harvests everything from corn to lima beans. Whatever is in season, along with ham that my uncle cured himself. Nothing compares to the fresh veggies and meats prepared by hand that my family brings down for the holidays – I have neither the time or the means to replicate this. But I can get frozen greens, and prepared with some skillet fried ham, or bacon pieces, and a touch of sugar, they're not bad when you're looking for the taste of home.
Suvir: thanks for that lovely excerpt!
Truesouthernlady: thank you for your recipe...I've never had this but I'm sure gonna make it at Christmas (and maybe once or twice before as a test run)
My pleasure to share that excerpt. But it seems like most everything today, people seem too lost in the moment or what they are thinking to look at a bigger picture.
Loved your post, your honesty and your practical approach. How you can use frozen greens and find the taste and flavor and experience almost similar and it is that which we have to understand to accept authenticity and life and experiences. Anything static is nothing more than that, STATIC!
Now back to more ramblings....
There is no reason for Southern Cooking to be understood as something that cannot be experienced at the hands of a master chef. Why should it be only acceptable when cooked by a mother or father or a chef at home?
Why can it not exist in more than one plane?
why allow old stereotypes, be they positive or negative to keep Southern Cooking in a ghetto?
I have enjoyed Southern food in homes, on the roadside, in fancy and hole-in-the-wall places and have had memorable and worthy experiences at all these places. Not always, but often enough. Just as I have had similar luck in the North East, in France, in India, in Morocco, In Sri Lanka, in Hong Kong, in Japan or many other parts of the world.
There is beauty and brilliance and depth in a cuisine that can have excellence across the spectrum.
As chefs and artists of the culinary world come of age and create their playing grouds (their restaurants) in cities across the South – it is foolish to fight them and treat them as an aliens rather than celebrating their cuisine as a logical next step in the evolution of the cuisine, the people, the region and life.
But I guess I could be wrong in thinking that the world moves forward and does not always tarry with yesterday. Being mindful, respectful and connected to the past is great. But to inhibit ones growth today with a pedagogy that is stifling to all is nothing to be proud of. Call me foolish, I am happy being that, if it means I enjoy life, growth and evolution of all kind.
Everything in the universe evolves....why not food. I think the fusion of different cultures,ingredients etc is amazing. Once a month 5 friends of mine get together at my home,and everyone brings a box of ingredients for each course. I may supply ingredients for a main,and someone else brings ingredients for an appetizer etc. Then we switch boxes and...whatever we come up with is dinner! There has been some amazing success. It's interesting to see what someone else would do very differently from myself,with the same ingredients.
Southern fare is so interesting to me because it has such colourful history. It is rustic yet can be very complex.
WOW, there is a whole lot of South in the US! I think when you move into different regions of the south, the food changes. There is a big difference from Florida to California – and they are all Southern States. Perhaps they are talkin' "Confederate Food", you know, South of the Yankees, but East of the Center of the US!
What a crock... Southern food is quite possible the best food in the world. I've been to Europe, Canada, and N. Africa and can say that nobody and I mean nobody has better seafood than South Louisiana. Sorry it is true. Go ask Emeril Lagasse about that. He has made how many millions cooking cajun/creole food? So I am sorry but not all Southern food is crap. :-) My wife is from Pennsylvania and I can say when I visit the food is not nearly as flavored. You peeps up North like it too bland and dry. Sorry... You're missing out in my opinion.
Have you ever been to the West Coast or New England? Most people with a sophisticated palette wouldn't touch warm water seafood.
Is there a point to the pretentious nature of your posts? I have travelled quite extensively,and eaten at some of the finest restaurants. There is a lot that the "sophisticated palette" enjoys strictly because they believe that because it is rare or expensive it is good. This is not necessarily true. While I do love Foie Gras,White truffles,and good wine. I also enjoy food from my youth. Disparaging on someones culture isn't a refined or "sophisticated" action. Rather pompositiy overcompensating for your own shortcomings.
Why don't you go $@#& yourself.
If you were truly sophisticated, you'd be open to trying all kinds of different foods rather than spouting off pretentious comments that lack flavor...just like the food you eat. PS, warm water seafood probably doesn't want you to touch them either, you a$$.
yeah...monkfish is soooooooooooooo much better than Mahi Mahi or Grouper...jeez, what were us southerners thinking to eat food we actually caught...ever eaten a shrimp????? Oh thats right...they're warm water seafood....what northerner would dare????
yeah...monkfish is soooooooooooooo much better than Mahi Mahi or Grouper...jeez, what were us southerners thinking to eat food we actually caught...ever eaten a shrimp????? Oh thats right...they're warm water seafood....what northerner would dare????
I'm from the North and I don't like it bland and dry. To each his own.
Do I see the term "biscuit cutter" in this? The only biscuit making tradition I know abhors cutting biscuit out. Rather, a dollop of dough was pinched off by floured hand. Part of the working of the dough was the rolling and shaping of that into a biscuit. I was taught how to do this by my grandmother (born 1891), who represented 150 years of a very rural Southern cooking tradition. Some of those fancy town Southern biscuit makers might have used a cutter, but I think the hand-formed method was the choice of rural cooks.
Amen no southern woman I know of would ever use a biscuit cutter. My poor mama never id make great biscuits but my aunt made them just about every day of her life. Flour from a flour can, she didnt use lard but Crisco, it was better for you. And because she worked that dough everyday her hands were the softest I think I have ever felt. thanks for helping me remember.
My one granny did indeed use her hands to squeeze out blobs of dough, but the other used a cutter, mainly because her biscuit dough was worked into thin layers of buttery flaky goodness and she didn't want to handle it more to avoid tough dough. Who knows? Perhaps she was a bit more sophisticated southern?? But she was definitely southern.
Grits, BBQ, cabbage and cornbread the Holy Grail or aka Last Supper in the South
I am originally from Louisiana and I think of dishes such as Gumbo,Crawfish Etouffee, Shrimp Po-Boys, Boulettes, Dirty Rice... I really don't see Texas as the South. It is more Tex-Mex and stuff. It is all about being a Texan – whatever that means. :-) Louisiana at least has more history and cultural pride. Which makes more sense in my opinion.
Heck, in my modest Southern city there are three different restaurants that were Beard finalists. What more proof do you need?
Well those awards are regional. It's not like they are competing with real NorthEast restaurants.
No need to be a snob, especially since you're wrong. Highlands Bar and Grill in Birmingham is only one of five top restaurants in the country.
Not only that, Otter, but there are SO many great "hole in the wall" places here for true Southern or Soul Food! Might have to get some lunch from Bright Star, Niki's or a Green Acres tomorrow!
"I Believe I Can Fry." Cute.
That's really funny people say that the portions are a problem in the south. I lived in Houston, Texas for 19yrs and moved 3 years ago(22 now) and I now live in Woodbury, Minnesota and trust me BIG portions are not just a problem of one state, it's a universal problem. I'm not sure about other countries because I have not traveled a lot but I would have to say that portioning is not top priority in many states, not just the south. And those of you poking fun at Texas. You suck :P
Move to Louisiana, Alabama, Miss, Tenn, Florida, Georgia or S. Caro for Southern Food. Texas isn't Southern food... Seriously what southern food do you get in Texas? I live in Austin, TX right now and have lived in Tyler, TX and Dallas, TX. The only thing you can get here is good tacos and questionable bbq. lol...
True Ben, but I am from West Texas, and I wouldn't consider the tacos in Austin to be real Mexican food either! LOL
What, not one mention of boiled peanuts? I'm shocked! :) My momma calls them "redneck caviar."
I don't think that Southern food is fancy restaurant material. It's more suited to family style dining or a hole in the wall that advertises down home cooking. Southern food, to me, tends to fall into the realm of comfort food – macaroni and cheese, succotash, country ham, grits, biscuits and gravy, BBQ, pecan pie, etc. And I live in Florida, so Cuban food, citrus, and seafood are also what I consider to be Southern food.
Really so Emeril must be an idiot cooking cajun/creole food. He has made how many millions from his cooking shows? Hmm...
Southern cooking is all about the dripping can on your stove top, if you don't know what one is, then you don't know how to cook real Southern food.
Amen!
True dat!
Preachin' to the choir!
Why don't you all shut up?
Settle down there lil' buckeroo...
If we shut up, what will you read?
I have several friends from the South and on occasion they have forced me to go out for Southern food with them. I quickly relized that Southern food is not really a regional thing. In the North we have the same type of foods available it's just that you will only find them in the ghetto and nobody willing eats them.
What is now being coined as Southern food is really just a way to cook with with the lowest grade of meats and highly processed foods such as grits. As talented chefs are embracing the slow food and local food movement, it seems that the Southernphiles are moving to low quality processed.
Interesting – okra, corn, tomatos, beans, squash, cucumbers, carrots, yep, all horrible low grade foods. Newsflash, if you eat food in anything other than its purely native form, it's processed to some extent. What exactly do you think cooking is (hint: processing)?. Exactly what sets grits apart from any other food? Do you eat flour, cornmeal, vegetable oil, olive oil, or anything along those lines? Yep, processed. Last I checked, everyone here eats the same cuts of meat from the same animals with some adjustments for regional availability (e.g., crab versus catfish).
Occasion means more than once it sounds to me like you really like Southern food or you would not have eaten it so many times.
You are totally out of your mind! You don't to like Southern Food, but don't denigrate those who can make wonderful dishes that have become a part of award-winning restaurants.
What are you talking about? Grits a highly-processed food? It's basically just dried corn that's been ground into small pieces (in a local stone mill if your lucky). How is this different from flour? And if you're right to compare Southern food to "ghetto food". That's called Soul Food, my friend. And it's delicious. Southern food is the original locavore food. Southern grannies have been cooking out of their kitchen garden generations before Alice Waters showed up.
I think you are a troll and are only trying to stir things up. If you truly feel this way, I'm surprised your southern friends invite you anywhere.
By the way, where do you live? If you don't live in the south, then you are not eating southern food.
You don't know what the heck your talking about. I'll have you eat Southern food that's so good that you would literally slap your mamma to get more.
Troll.
Seriously, is there anything okra can't fix?
For me (a Georgia Girl), southern food revolves around what comes from the garden and who you are sharing it with. Things like butter beans, butter peas, sweet corn, turnips (bottoms and tops), squash, sweet potatoes, peaches, pecans, collards, black-eye peas, snap beans, hot peppers and tomatoes were standard fare. These things would be eaten fresh and plenty was frozen to eat during the winter. The children would pick the blackberries and muscadines and scuppernog grapes along the road or down dirt tracks and talk about how they were going to enjoy the cobbler/jam/jelly mamma is going to make. Typically more blackberries were consumed than made it back for cobbler. If you didn't have a garden, whoever dropped by was going to bring you something from their garden.
You can use lard/crisco/bacon or whatever to make your biscuits or flavor your beans and greens, but sharing in abundance with your family and friends and laughter is what makes a meal great.
Wow, who knew an article about FOOD would pi$$ so many off. Sheesh, lets relax folks. I live in the North, and believe me, 'HOT DISH' or 'CASAROLE' are not on my menu. Nothing like taking the crap that fell on the floor and baking it into submission. As for southern food....good stuff, if cooked properly!
Hey- wait a minute! What about tator tot hotdish? That IS on my menu! :) I'm from MN. Can you tell?
Being born and raised in Tennessee, Southern food is as several of the responders has indicated, but with this twist; In my mind, starting with my Grandmother, on my fathers side, it was done of sheer desperation. How to feed a brood with short supplies. Here is where the love comes in. The food was prepared with love, for each of the siblings, each of the ingredients, the feel, the aroma, the touch to the mouth had to be just so. Picking fresh fruits and vegetables with the noon or evening meal in mind, took love and devotion. No one ordered anything! It was as served or go hungry. No one did! LOL
I was born and raised in the south (Georgia, to be exact). If you want good southern cooking, don't go to a fancy restaurant in Atlanta, go to a Sunday afternoon brunch in Dalton, Dahlonega, or Warm Springs, etc. The fare is country ham with red-eye gravy, grits, corn (all kinds from on-the-cob to fried), cornbread (especially cornbread with "cracklins"), greens (boiled in a mixture of water and vinegar), biscuits, rice with chicken gravy, okra (I like it fried, but boiled is also good), tomatoes (fried-green and simply sliced), black-eyed peas, green beans, and every other vegetable known to man.
That is what my great grandmother, grandmother, and mother used to cook and and enjoy.
Fried okra, but noy that deep fried nugget stuff. Sliced thin, tossed in cornmeal and pan fried until crunchy.
I got a bone to pick with you 'bout Atlanta. Visit The Beautiful, Thelma's or Big Daddy's. They will bring you outta those hills every time!
I'm from CA, but spent time in Athens on several occasions, where I learned about 'drank', and about 'stew" and about how they toss bags of potato chips on the table in the BBQ joints .... the food is fantastic, like none you can get here, so here's one Yankee who isn't bad mouthing the South!
Down here you would be considered as a "left coaster" not a yankee. Texans aren't considered as "southern" either, they're kinda like the South's annoying little brother.
I couldn't agree more that true southern food is born from passion that cooks the food and the family it feeds AND a well loved cast iron skillet. I use one that my grandmother gave to me that was given to her by one of her aunts. I was born and raised here in AL, and even though our lifestyles are changing drastically, I still try to pull out one or two of the recipes that my grandmother wrote down for me a week. Two of my favorite dinners to make have to be country ham with redeye gravy and SLOW cooked pinto beans with a "mess" of cornbread. The latter is my wife's least favorite, but she's from Ohio so what does she know ;) j/k. As my son grows older, I'll make sure that he gets to expierence some of what I had growing up. I still suck at making my grandmother's infamous yeast rolls...still don't know how she did them.
To clarify – my grandmother's rolls were "infamous" because they were known to induce grown men into a semi-coma state. They called to you like a siren's sweet song and there was no way to eat just one. Pure bliss with a hefty side of evil.
Southern food is about more than grease and lard. It's an art-form derived from centuries of tradition, skill and craft. Finding an individual who cooks like your grandmother did is rare... unless they're up in age. I'm only 24 and I can't even come to terms with how great Southern cooking can be. In its more rare form, you have higher calorie contents but flavors that will last a lifetime. New Southern cooking involves being more "green" but doesn't allow for full flavor. A true, Southern-born cook knows, according to my Grams, that you "never eat a skinny chef's food; ain't nothin compares to a fat chef's cookin!"
Lord, maybe that's why my appetite is always so huge!
My, and especially my wife's grandmother(s) were always cooking because meals took forever to prepare. The men and the hired hands were working on the farm all the time and keeping them fed was difficult. Most of the items that were cooked were taken directly from the farm (except for flour, for example). Meals were huge and no one was fat.
... and _nothing_ got wasted.
southern food while good is nothing really special. i mean come on compared to some other cuisine like Japanese it's as bland and unflavorful as British food.
Sugar, I don't know where you've been eating southern food, but comparing it to British food is just wrong. Come visit Charleston, SC and we'll show you how good it can be!
I'm southern and love southern cooking and I love Japanese food as well. I do believe, however, that to call southern food "bland" and "unflavorful" is against the law.
You, sir, are an idiot. To compare southern food to British food-I am speechless.
Southern food is much better tasting, and better for you than the stereotype leads you to believe. It can actually be quite healthy considering that my family in NC and SC routinely cooks okra, lima beans, squash, greens, sweet potatoes, carrots, etc. It's very vegetable laden. Southern cooking is all about making the most out of cheap ingredients, because early southerners grew their own veggies and slaughtered their own hog/beef/ etc. and did not go out grocery shopping, or searching for rare ingredients. It's about not having to have a dictionary next to you when cooking because the fancy recipe you are making based on a dish hailing from some NYC restaurant calls for rare truffle oil, saffron, anise, or some other strange ingredient. Don't get me wrong, I love 5 star cuisine from the best restaurants the world has to offer, but if you want to know Southern food, its what I've summed up: cheap, simple, fresh and delicious.
Southern food is cooked with love, patience and whatever happened to be lying around the kitchen that day. It is recipes that were and are passed down from grandmother's grandmothers and tweaked (ever so slightly!) by each new generation. Chefs can fancy the ingredients up all they want, but you'll never get true Southern cooking that way.
Also, contrary to some opinions and comments here, all southern food is not soaked in lard or fried, although it ALWAYS tastes better that way. Southern food includes a wonderful variety of fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, etc. thanks to our region's amazing growing climate and diverse lanscapes. And as a side note, my grandmother just celebrated her 99th birthday after eating (and drinking!) like a true southern woman all her life.
Ahh, but how do you truly define "southern" food?
Paces that most Americans would claim as "south" reside in the northern hemisphere :P
(For those of you who take the internet too seriously, this is a joke.)
My grandma Kitty, the quintessential Southern lady, would be horrified that her family so fondly remembers the food served at the cherry dining room table at her home in Birmingham. She considered herself a society lady who was somewhat above feeding people. I think this is why she transitioned so well to an assisted living facility, because the food became someone else’s responsibility. In her day, Kitty did, however,could fill the table with sliced ham, potato salad, Jell-O salad, fresh snap beans with pork, sliced tomatoes with mayonnaise, the obligatory vegetable casserole, as well asl turn out perfect silver-dollar size biscuits, just as light as you please, without ever using a recipe. To this day, I still read the back of the White Lily self-rising flour bag, just to be sure I’ve got it right.
This is my way of saying the Southern grandma analogy is overused and overwrought – you’re right about the specter. I can’t imagine that our grandmothers cooked exactly the way they were taught by their mothers and grandmothers. After all, somewhere in there, the iceman and the wood-fueled stove became obsolete. Cooks adapted, letting creativity and technology take their place by necessity.
Cultures evolve, our language is continually changing. Southern food is an incredibly broad term that can encompass everything from my Granddaddy’s skillet-fried corn with bacon, of course, to Chef Hopkins’ sorghum cake with macerated citrus and sorghum syrup tuile. Why ever not? It gives us something to talk about as we stuff our faces full of the best cooking on earth.
Those biscuits? Use REAL butter, not Crisco. 12 – 14 inch iron fry pan with 1/4 to 1/2 oil in the bottom. Put the iron fry pan with the oil in oven and bring up to 400 degrees. Drop the biscuits in the fry pan (be careful with the oil!) 3 to 5 minutes – just when the tops start to brown. Take out the fry pan and immediately remove biscuits (w/ tongs) to a brown paper bag or paper towell. Wah-lah! Yum ...
My dear grannies, both southerners, made biscuits different ways, and both were equally delicious. One grandmother used butter, rolled out the batter, buttered, folded over and rolled out, buttered...well, you get the picture...before she cut them with a biscuit cutter. My other grandmother made them with Crisco, and her most important ingredient was buttermilk, her most important utensil her fingers. These were drop biscuits, and so easy to make. Both were delicious. Thank goodness I learned how to make them before they passed away.
What is Southern food? Southern food is food that is identified by a non-southerner as being beneath him or her to eat. Southern food, though generally the same food eaten anywhere else, gives a non-southerner an opportunity to dip into his bucket of stereotypes and reinforce his personal prejudice about people living in a different region.
Whatever! Stereotypes against Southerners are real and rampant - but I don't know anybody who thinks Southerners can't cook.
When I think of Southern food I think of Emeril and his stuff is a lot better than your Yankee meals. :-D I'm sorry but beef stew with no pepper or salt is just gross. You need spices in your food. Some how the North doesn't get that... :-/
To Ben:
Northern cooking traditions typically go back to the settlers from 1600's and 1700's settlers, most of whom came from England, France, Germany, etc., and typically used herbs that could be grown locally rather than spices that were not compatible with the harsh climate or soil here (and very expensive to import or buy). These staples, such as "bake" dishes, including cassaroles, stews, or "pot" dinners tended to be the preferred way of cooking, especially when midwinter might only bring dried veggies, potatoes or root veggetables that needed to soak a few hours in hot water to rehydrate them and make them palatable. That said, I realize that this is not the case now in a modern age, but traditions die hard. My mother still misses the New England boiled dinner her Nana used to make with pot roast, cabbage and potatos, and a fire-pit clam bake with lobsters, clams and corn is enough to make my mouth water. Either way, real food, cooked with real love and attention, applies to all regions because it's how we show our family and friends how much we care.
Where did that come from? I don't think anything is "beneath me". I personally had a genuine interest in learning something about it,because my knowledge was admittedly limited. I think perhaps you're the one who needs to relieve themselves of prejudice and stereotypes. I'll tell you no food is more "rustic" than Canadian food like Blueberry Grunt,Poutine,Beavertails etc.
Good point! In Northern Michigan, you eat what you can catch. I've had squirrel, rabbit, wild turkey, pheasant, Coho salmon, brook trout, wild rice, morel mushrooms, milkweed pods, sumac tea, wild blackberries, etc. Nobody's got a monopoly on rustic cuisine! I'm Native, and our food is actually much simpler than my Southern hubby's.
I was being bitter and preemptive. I just came from another story about crime in the south and the redneck comments were in full force, despite the fact that it was no different than any other crime committed anywhere in the country. I like southern food too (lived here all my life), well, except for that which has meat in it (the ultra-rare and elusive southern vegetarian :) ). No one makes better biscuits! My apologies for being negative and crotchety.
LOL No problem we all have bad days
I love it! Somebody with manners on a message board, of all places! I don't eat red meat and my daughter's a vegetarian, so my big complaint is that Southerners can't cook a friggin' bean without adding bacon or chicken broth. Come to our house and I'll make you some collards you wjill actually eat! :)
On a side note, I get very irritated with the anti-Southern prejudice that exists in this country. If you have a Southern accent, people assume you're stupid, inbred, and racist from the moment you open your mouth. I get so angry! My husband and kids are all Southerners, born and raised, and they are some of the most intelligent and decent people one could hope to meet. Racism and redneckedness are alive and well in the North as well. Not sure why Yankees are so quick to dismiss their own secret prejudices while unjustifiably pinning them on someone else.
I hope you have a better day. In fact, YOU WILL!
Lucky, sometimes the anonymity of the forums allows us to spout off things we'd not otherwise say in person. No consequences for one's actions brings out the worst.
The fundamental flaw with prejudice is that when reading articles or making daily observations we seek out behaviors, characteristics, etc. that reinforce them but rarely do we make a mental note that an observation is contrary to them.
Anyway, on topic, I joke that if they could put lard in my diet coke they would. One of my favorites is "Can you eat chicken?" Um, no.
"my big complaint is that Southerners can't cook a friggin' bean without adding bacon or chicken broth." That's because we like our food to taste GOOD. We picked up on the concept of SEASONING our food.
This is a melange of soul food and southern food – a memory from my childhood and a summer with my grandmother
fresh sliced REAL tomatoes – picked that monring by my Papaw
Red onions and cucumber marinated in white vinegar, water and a bit of sugar – both picked from the same garden
Pinto Beans cooked with a ham hock – I have fond memories of shelling beans and peas with my Mamaw
Cornmeal dredged Fresh crappie and large mouth bass quick fried – caught earlier in the day when we got to go fishing – my Grandmother taught me to fish when I was 4
Cornbread with butter cooked in a black spider
Sun Tea – not normally sweet – we weren't sweet tea drinkers
Peach Cobbler
Homeade vanilla ice cream
And lots of talk and cousins and aunts and uncles and family.
And if there was any cornbread left – crumble it up in a glass of buttermilk – breakfast of champions!
I like cornbread crumbled in sweet milk wit salt and pepper!
Hummingbird cake : For whom ever would like to have it.
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups veg. or other choice of oil
3 eggs
1 can crushed pineapple, drained
2 cups mashed bananas
1 cup chopped black walnuts or pecans
1 package cream cheese, softened
1/4 pound butter, softened
1 pound confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Grease and flour 2 – 9 inch cake pans
Sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt
In a large bowl, combine the oil, eggs, pineapple, bananas and nuts. Add flour mixture, and mix together by hand
Pour batter into prepared pans and bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from
oven and allow to cool on racks.
Prepare the frosting by blending together the cream cheese, butter, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Evenly spread frosting on middle, sides and top of cake. Sprinkle the top with broken pieces for nuts.
THANK YOU!!!! I just loved this cake when I had it...it left you wanting more...a lot more! lol
Oh man AD... this does sound wonderful!!
Mmm, wish I could have some of my Granny's hot-water cornbread, and my Grandmother's dressing. So glad I live in the South! Louisiana, btw!
I lived in Texas for 8 years and trust me Southern food compared to other foods is totally fattening and makes you want to go to sleep. And people in the South need to be educated on what a portion is. BIGGER portioning does not make your food taste good. To any who has not tried Southern food please do not try it and you are not missing anything except for lard and grease.
Hmm, Texas isn't really the South so take up your beef with them.
^
I spent three years in Texas. You're eating the wrong thing! Texas is for steak, barbecue, and Tex-Mex, period. But I agree that a lot of Southern dishes take the lard waaay too seriously...
Texas is great for those things. But it's not that different than a lot of these posts at a Texas grandma's house. Our fare as a kid was mostly vegetables from the garden, yes the okra was fried – a pot roast in the oven, casseroles, etc. We're 10th generation Texans. If you spend all your time in Texas eating in restaurants – sure the best and the predominate foods are going to be BBQ and Tex Mex – and that's great – but that's not TYPICAL traditional home-cooking. That's "eating out". For special occasions we usually had fried shrimp, catfish and oysters, hush-puppies, cole slaw, and a loaf of home-made buttered bread. Oh, and Texas is most DEFINITELY part of the South.
Whatever, Mexican – go home.
For many Mexicans Texas is, and has been since centuries ago, home... You indian killer
To "Shut Up..."
Do you troll much?
That's the 2nd time you posted the same obnoxious post.
To AuroraDawn: Post a fax number and I would be happy to send you the receipe for Hummingbird cake.
Mmm... Great posts! Lucky for me I married a Southerner.
One huge difference in Southern and Yankee cooking is in the cooking method. Southerners are masters of the skillet, stovetop and grill; if it can be fried or barbecued, they're all over it. But biscuits aside, Yankees rule the oven; pastries, breads, casseroles, and pot roasts are king Up North. I think it's because cooks used to choose methods based on the weather conditions (to an extent we still do). Before AC and central heating, you wanted to time that oven use out just right. The delightful result is that here in America, we can have our cake - and the corn dodgers, too. :)
I agree that Southern cooking makes the best use of fresh ingredients. That nice, long growing season makes all the difference. I do wish they'd quit putting meat in all the veggies, though. Sometimes a bean is good as just... a bean. But God bless 'em for the collards n' ham.
I agree about the veggies. We also cook them forever until their nearly mush. But lots of poor people lived off the potlikker from those veggies. I prefer my green beans cooked crisp tender or sauteed but let me tell you, when I hosted Thanksgiving I served pole beans boiled down to a nice, soft yummy texture.
I mean "they're" not their. Ugh, I hate that...
Yup. When I cook for my family, the veggies are steamed. When I cook for the ILs, its mushy all the way! Not that I mind every now and then. Food is one of those things that tie a family together and I love having my husband's family around, so if they like what I cook then I'm happy.
And I am very, very happy to have married a Southerner - even if it was only for the okra, it would've been worth it! Is there anything okra CAN'T fix?!
Again, I think you are all over-generalizing Southern food. Sure, collards have to cook for HOURS and are just plain wrong without a ham hock in them. But, as for my green beans, I blanch them in some salt water, and then put a tiny bit of butter in the pot with some salt, pepper and garlic. No meat there and definitely not mush! I'm also a working mother and wife, so I don't have time to come home and cook beans or what not for hours. Now, those long-cooked dinners are saved for the weekends. But us Southerners do know how to make meat free and HEALTHY vegetables too!
You make me smile.
I generally cut Texas right out of my view of the South. There's just something not right about it. My father was stationed there when I was younger, and I served in Texas for a year before I moved to my perm duty station. One of my sisters was born in SC, the other in VA. I've also lived in TN, FL and currently reside in GA. I've lived in another 20 states between being a Military Brat, my Service and College. Basing your entire opinion of our culinary nature on a limited scope of 8 years in TX just leaves you lacking on one of the greatest reasons to wake up in the morning.
Portioning is a universal problem, and personal proclivity will always supersede portioning. You'll simply order double. Personal discipline has more to do with it than anything.
And lastly – Fat is flavor. It's a cooking fundamental.
And I appear to not have replied to 'Shut up...'
=D
These comments have brought back more memories than I expected! Born and raised in Mississippi, I grew up spending summers with my Granny in her kitchen watching her cook without measuring a single thing and never setting a timer. Some folks above me have it exactly right: it's all about the love and the (absolutely delicious) use of what's available to you. She still grows her own vegetables in her backyard, and you've never tasted a better tomato.
A chef at a restaurant is not supposed to cook food that is not thought-out at least somewhat.
Why else should one go to a restaurant to eat?
As an owner/creative-chef of a restaurant myself, I LOVE eating and feeding at home. In fact NOTHING I do matches the joy I have when I am teaching or feeding people at home. Those are TWO of my favorite things to do in the world. They are two things I do that truly can inspire me and others.
Then why do I associate myself with a restaurant? Why have recipes created that feed people without my presence at my restaurant? That is a question with very deep meaning and much to be considered.
At my restaurant, I try and offer people a cuisine, dishes, flavors, tastes and a memorable experience that might not be possible at home. At the restaurant I cook as my mother can with a group of chefs and helpers at her home. I share foods that people might never find outside of a blessed home. I hope to give at my restaurant people meals that will be memorable forever and rich in ways only a meal such as one eaten at a blessed home or a fine restaurant can be. Of course I have had meals at homes with no staff that were equally rich and varied and outstanding but the odds are less. At the restaurant, with a knowledge of knowing our gifts of human resources, our access to amazing land-based produce and animal-based produce, we are able to create magical offerings that certainly are possible in a home, but require a lot more time, sweat and many more hands.
What does it take to make a very memorable meal happen? Well it takes a village, if you will, to make a memorable feast get created and enjoyed in a restaurant setting and even more at a home. Teams of people, working for hours and hours with great focus and dedication to the craft and art of cooking – create each bite that a diner enjoys in a restaurant. Of course we are speaking of restaurants where food is not served simply brought out of a shipped box, brought to temperature in a microwave or oven and then served. We are speaking of restaurants that are more mindful of what they serve and ensure they cook their food in-house from scratch.
It is this mindful cooking that leads to thought-out cooking that is no more or no less magical than the wondrous foods cooked for us by family members that enjoy cooking. Of course a restaurant setting affords the cook/chef a lot more creativity. At the very least because of the team of people readily available to help with the many layers of magic being created. Of course my family in India can outshine many restaurant meals easily – since my mother has a team of people working on each meal at our home. Many hands come together in the preparation of that food. How could I ever match what she does at our home in India at my farm in Upstate NY where Charlie and I are alone in the creation, preparation, cleaning and sharing of a meal and celebration?
If we can keep all of these facts in mind, one could understand what Chef Linton Hopkins has created in his world of Southern Fare. It does not have to be what another may have grown up with or may think of as being authentic. Authenticity itself is only authentic when it changes with time, adapts to changing times and needs, and is a mirror image of the times it is being represented in.
I remember so well the words of support Michael Batterberry, Founding Editor of Food and Wine and Food Arts Magazine had for chefs like Linton Hopkin and myself who were working hard to establish new grounds for the cuisine of their land, the cuisine they grew up with and the cuisine of a particular region or people, in a world that was different today than it was in the past. Only he could have said it as she did. I quote him from the foreword he wrote for my book.below. To make a point Read it and replace me and put Linton Hopkins in my place. You will learn to be a little more generous as you understand the chefs cuisine and his mission. I must also add that Chef Linton Hopkins is a far more talented man than I ever could be. I also hardly live in a cave to consider him an equal of mine in any way. His stature, fame, success and brilliance is at a level grater than I am at now, or may ever reach. I hold him at a very high esteem and do so not because of any success he has found with his restaurant (to be honest, I have yet to eat a meal at his restaurant) or as a celebrity. I respect him for his values, those he shares as he travels to speak at conferences, at events and in public appearances. He does the South and all of America very proud with his manner, his generosity, his simplicity and his deep respect for his roots. How I wish those that challenge him, would spend some time first understanding where this great chefs mind comes from and then place his cuisine into a context it deserves to be at. And so, below please read a large excerpt from the foreword written for my first book my Michael Batterberry, a sage mind, a brilliant mind, lost from our world suddenly earlier this year, but a mind that shall always be relevant in the world of food. You can check out Food Arts Magazine by looking at this link http://www.foodarts.com
"..........We ourselves first caught wind of Suvir in the mid 1990s when an Indian travel consultant patronized by the footloose culinary cognoscente for her private gastronomic tours of the subcontinent, told us of a young caterer catching fire along New York’s food centric party circuits. His style of cooking, she suggested, at once fresh and authentic, would be of particular interest to Food Arts magazine subscribers, professionals always alert to newly flowering talent with secrets of the world’s tastiest cuisines to spill.
Contacting each other by phone, Suvir and I made a date for a quick editorial lunch. While the magazine’s offices lie within the Flat Iron district’s tight mesh of postmodern restaurant thrills, they also abut a Little India enclave known as Curry Hill, a short city stroll as aromatic as any in New Delhi, peppered with unpretentious eating places and intriguingly crammed food shops that draw Indian expats and adventurous American chefs and home cooks from near and far. With all these polyglot choices, where would he like to go? Happily, Suvir proposed that we explore a new vegetarian regional Indian restaurant right around the corner, its menu posting in the window as indecipherable to me as an atomic physicist’s jottings.
Suvir, who has the gift of immediate intimacy, tempered by ancestral decorum, proved to be an ideal table companion, a charming raconteur and, quite clearly, a born teacher with the ability to set the unfamiliar in engaging context. The arrival of each dish provoked from him an informative meander of recognition, definition, and recollection glinting with colorful detail. Repeatedly, Panditji, the name of his family’s make Brahmin cook, was intoned with the fervor of a culinary mantra. Suvir’s cooking guru since childhood, a man whose reverence for food extends to bathing the family’s resident kitchen idols in basil spiced Ganges River water, Panditji’s wise, quasi-mystical presence can be felt coursing through the chapters of this book.
For me, the entry that most tellingly captures the essence of Panditji’s transcendental home cooking is an evocatively annotated recipe for Kheer, a rice pudding identified by the author as the quintessential Indian dessert. Suvir recalls that even as a small child he understood that Panditji’s Kheer, with its “sublimely creamy texture,” was better than anyone else’s. Although, as he points out, almost no technique is involved, the secret lay in the Brahmin cook’s abundance of “love, patience, and the desire to entertain your senses as well as those of others…. With his priestly training, he understood puddings as a means to inspire the senses in a way that was otherwise impossible for mortals to experience: eating this was the closest that we could come to tasting the divine in this earthly life.”
Not that all Indian home cooking serves as one-way transport to cloudless nirvana. Here you’ll also find the hearty dishes, punchy flavors, and what Americans used to call zing. Earthy pleasures, too, some unexpectedly parallel to our own. Suvir was knowingly amused when I described to him a lunch in New Delhi with the firebrand editor and publisher Mala Singh who had hospitably volunteered to help us untangle the menu’s regional Indian culinary ropes. Try the Sarson Kaa Saag with some Makee Kee Roti, she insisted. Very unusual for you, she continued, long cooked bitter greens with bread made of cornmeal. Oh, we replied, that’s exactly like American home cooking, it’s soul food of the South, collard greens and cornbread. This appropriation seemed not to please her, What’s not the same, she retorted, is that with it we drink buttermilk! Our response that so do Southerners sparked a swift change of subject. Ah, well, I thought, as the philosopher Lin Yutang wisely mused, “What is patriotism but all the good things we ate in childhood?”
Faced with the tastes, needs, resources of contemporary American home cooks, Suvir Saran fully understands Escoffier’s dictum that “the art of cookery is the constant expression of the present.” Even his recipe for Panditjis revered rice pudding illustrates his practical policy of making respectful adjustments and substitutions, “streamlining” as he puts it, to smooth the procedural and dietary paths of 21st century cooks: “I simplify wherever possible because today’s culture demands it and use substantially less oil than my teachers in India cooked with.”
Suvir’s precocious spectrum of talents and varied educational rites of passage in India and the United States have led to a serpentine career trajectory, corkscrewing from painter/print maker/sculptor and singer of classical Indian forms to manager of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s gift store, buyer of objets d’art for Bergdorf Goodman, and merchandising of Henri Bendel’s home furnishings department to cooking teacher, caterer, restaurant consultant, Food Arts contributor, and adjunct professor in the continuing education program of New York University’s department of Nutrition and Food Studies, where he specialized in Indian culinary techniques and sauces and led groups of spice research expeditions to Curry Hill.
Now he adds to his C.V. the profession of cookbook author, a logical outcome of his years as cooking teacher and caterer, twin careers that grew out of his days in high style retail, at which time he developed a reputation as a kitchen genie for his addictively tasty Indian home cooking repertoire, generous relays of which he would regularly bring to work to provide lunch for delighted fellow workers. Several of then persuaded him to give his first cooking lessons.
Generosity, spontaneity, warmth and serial explosions of flavor are hallmarks of Indian hospitality, an assertion my wife Ariane and I can vouch for, having been treated over several decades to the scintillating evidence of this in the homes of Indian friends, including Suvir’s, both in India and the West. To confirm that the intertwined phenomenon of Indian home cooking and hospitality are capable of retaining their vibrancy en voyage from the homeland, one need look no further than these pages, each one of which glows with articulately heartfelt presentations of flavor-layered recipes. All are easy to follow, no matter how seemingly complex the requisite arsenal of spices, which, in the internet age, are now available to anyone with a mailing address.
The recipes, many drawn from nostalgic circle of family sources other than Panditji, are also ecumenical in that Hindu vegetarian family favorites commingle with heirloom Muslin ones.
The mystery-dispelling clarity and depth of what appear to be foolproof formulae may be attributed to the collaborative vigilance of Stephanie Lyness, who, mirroring the procedural manner of the late great New York Times food editor and cookbook author Craig Claiborne who, attentively following the cooking moves of chef Pierre Frayne while glued to his typewriter, took scrupulous note of every phase of a dish’s execution, pausing to ask for clarification or amplification along the way in order to transmit any fugitive details or relevant food lore to the recipe’s eventual users, the trusting cookbook public.
But, as with any lasting contribution to cookbook literature, the ultimate proof of a new work’s value indeed lies in the proof of the pudding, or Kheer as the case may be here. With American food lover today exhibiting a surging hunger for bolder, more complexly flavored dishes, the timing of Indian Home Cooking’s publication is perfectly in sync. Who could resist Suvir Saran’s bugle call to pull up a chair to his soul reviving table where “we Indians don’t just love the taste of our food, we live for the taste.” Certainly not I. ........."
Whilst you might think the chef is gilding the lily around Southern cooking with his creations – I think the chef is doing what he is inspired to create as a culinary artist. The ingredients, the roots and the muse are all Southern and very traditional. It is his style, approach and creativity that are uniquely his own and create a cuisine that is at once authentic to the South of today, to the personality of this individual chef from the South and to the lifelong adventures that have enriched his mind, body and soul with food memories that are certainly enriching his life and creations of culinary jewels and masterpieces today.
The table is a wonderful place to come challenge one another, debate and chatter and argue. But it has never been a place to be small. At a table blessed with great food and cooked by generous people, I for one have never found a smallness of thought or generosity of acceptance. There is place for one and all. Lets hope our world keeps getting richer in the number of generous tables around which our world population can find fodder for good thought, for a hungry body and a hungry mind, all at once.
Suvir Saran
rambling away from my farm in Upstate NY as I lie in bed, with a cold or flu, and with nothing much to do but browse the internet
Holy Christmas, thats the longest post I've ever seen!
The post is long not just because of my long rambling way, but also because of my posting an excerpt from a man of great wisdom, who the world lost earlier this year. Read the excerpt from Michael Batterberry. It might make you understand this debate a little better. Sorry for such a long post. Forgive me please!
Suvir is VERY worth listening to. I promise.
????
I adore you, Suvir!
Wow, Chinese wall of text! So long I'll have to print it up and read at home.
Again, I am sorry for the barrage of words. Please do read, even if only the excerpted part from Michael Batterberry, the founding editor of Food and Wine and Food Arts magazines. He was as brilliant a man as they ever come, and a wordsmith and thinker unlike any one will find anytime soon. He passed away in July, leaving a world at a loss for a mind of with the generosity and wisdom that he seemed to have in abundance. He will help all in this debate appreciate what is wonderful about food throughout its many shapes, flavors and forms.
No apologies needed. Just was overwhelmed by such a long post. However, I am really going to print it and read it at home when I have the time.
I share Michael Batterberry's excerpt in a larger chunk that I originally wanted to, to share with all the relevance for food itself to be fluid and malleable and the opposite of didactic.
Food is always a mirror image of the times, society, people and politics that it is surrounded by and created in.
What Michael was trying to bring forth in his foreword about my book was how my book was going to give Indians in America and Americans who are not Indian a cookbook of Indian flavors and foods that was at once authentic and also part of the times it was written in.
We live in a world today where nothing is too exotic, too esoteric or too difficult to find.
In such a world, there is no room for mediocrity, for half-baked efforts, for foods that are too unhealthy or too plain or bland because of a lack of availability or affordability or access.
That is what has changed the dialog between what was authentic even only a couple of decades ago to today.
Certainly there are those that would rather live so authentically that they would seem out of fit in the moment. Not sure how good a living that is.
That said, I live my life to respect, celebrate and safeguard traditions, difference, diversity and the past. I hope that realizing how the world is a melting pot today of great variety does not mean one has to divorce oneself from the magic of what was, is and always shall be a shining star of unique identity.
Yes, and the fact that it praises you at great length has *nothing* to do with it does it? You couldn't find any other quote could you?
The fact it, it's a load of horsepuckey that utterly fails to adress the actual issues being discussed here.
No offensive intended, just my quick witted, smart-mouth getting ahead of me sometimes. Nothing personal at all Suvir.
And I may have been overly sensitive. Thanks though for clarifying. You are too kind.
I couldn't agree with you more as to the passion that goes into food preparation AND the enjoyment of it with friends and family. Growing up in a second-generation restaurant family has made me appreciate the passion that can be put into food. The kitchen is my favorite room in the house and the energy and enjoyment I get from cooking and having a long meal with friends is invaluable. If you are ever in DC, I'd break bread (or nan) with you anytime.
Sir Biddle – do you own a restaurant? are you a chef? I look forward to us breaking bread or naan. Thanks for that offer. I am in DC at least a few times each year. Thanks!
I read American Masala! I loved it. Write away,please.
Perhaps you will now cook from it and that will say more about my writing and recipe talents. Hope you enjoy that which you made from American Masala. Thanks for your kind words AuroraDawn!
Nobody has a problem with a chef being creative, innovative, etc... The problem arises when he calls his creations 'Southern' when they plainly are not. They're modern 'fou-fou' food that bears little to no resemblance to the cuisine he claims they belong to.
That post is longer than a southern bapist preacher's sermon on Easter morning!
I can agree with both sides of this debate. While I do believe that the food that I cherished growing up, cooked by my Mamaw, was wonderful in its simplicity. I also support the Contemporary Southern Cuisine that the new generation of southern chefs have delved into. I have lived and ate in a variety of places, ending up in the Northeast unfortunately, and I have grown more than fascinated with food-all types. Despite all the different foods that I have eaten, even those that have been the most complex, there will never be anything better than my Mamaw's biscuits with tomato gravy. MMMM, makes my mouth water just thinking about it. Though I hate bland food more than most, the simple southern dishes that I grew up loving: mustard greens, turnip greens, green beans, even cabbage after being simmered all day in fat back were phenomenal and could have never touched my taste buds and left me with a thought of blandness. I think it is important that the food evolves. I don't think that we should erase the masterpieces that our Mamaw's created, but I think that we should realize that over time the southern pallete has matured for the most part. We can still love our comfort foods and appreciate the root of our cuisine, but I don't think we should be closed minded to tossing in a few fresh ideas.
Southerners do tend to cook vegetables to mush, but that's what makes them good! Peas, lima beans, beans, and cabbage should be cooked until they are soft. To this day, I don't like a firm green pea. Cabbage slow-cooked in bacon–that's good eatin'! And what is the dispute about pinto beans? We always ate pinto beans.
I agree with everyone else, that's not really Southern Cooking. I do appreciate the modernization and reinterpretation of the food, that's interesting and fun. But I would never want to eat any of that for Sunday dinner.
John Kessler (whom I LOVE to read) was right on every point. Southern food is about peasant food. What comes from the ground and pigs. Lots of pig and you eat it all, tail to snout! The comparison to Italian cooking is spot on too. When you think of real Italian food you think of a little old Italian woman cooking all day to prepare a big meal for her family, effort and love. No different from the Southern Cooking I remember from Mimi as a child (and all the veggies coming from Grandaddy's huge garden).
Yeah...I agree on the cast iron skillet. My mother cooks in skillets that were her mothers. You just get a better flavor.
I am a Bama girl and I am blessed with having my great-grandmother's iron skillets. So well seasoned and so many wonder meals that were cooked in them for over 100 years. Southern food is such a tradition with historical ties that date back to before there was a United States. These wonderful recipes that have been handed down from one generation to the next gives me a connection to my family that I truly cherish. I don't like all types of southern food, but like anything else these days, you can tweak the recipe to make it heathier.
Now...I stayed at a gorgeous inn in Savannah a few years ago and the lady who ran it made this cake...OMG She said it was an old Southern Recipe..I'm sure I'll massacre the name but....for some reason I want to say Hummingbird cake...could that be right/ I don't know but it was amazing!!!
yes, that's it.
That cake was without a doubt one of the yummiest things I ever ate in my life...I should have got her recipe.
Hummingbird Cake – an amazing dish.
Here's a link to a hummingbird cake recipe...sounds about right, but I haven't made it myself.
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/hummingbird-cake-i/Detail.aspx
Thank you for the recipe link. I think I'll make one for my family for Christmas to go along with the deviled eggs (with paprika sprinkled on top), green beans cooked with a ham hock, sweet potatoe casserole with pecans, and a Virginia ham. I'll have to leave the biscuit making to my sister-in-law – hers are better than mine. Y'all come – Yankees included. Eat – then go home!
Collard greens with bacon neckbones biscuits with poor mans gravy
Some examples of southern food:
BBQ (meat that's slow cooked/smoked)
Fried everything with gravy (eg chicken fried steak, fried fat backs, fried okra, fried pickles, fried chicken etc...)
Vegetables cooked with meat until they are soggy (collards, squash, green beans etc...)
Grits
Okra
Cornbread that looks like pancakes
Chicken with rice (mixed together)
Fried catfish and mullet
Banana pudding with vanilla wafers on top
....what is a fat back? I'm getting schooled today on Southern food...oh yeah...and what in the world is a Chitlin(sp) ???
Fat back is a huge hunk of pork that is pretty much what it sounds like. Fat from the back of the pig. And chitlin's, I just suggest you run from them. I was born and raised in So. GA and I will not touch a chitlin!
Fatback = The back or side portion. It's what we make our American Bacon with as well as lardons, rendered fat, etc. Chitlin's, also known as Chitterlings I suppose, is pig intestine. It's often fried, put in soups, and other fun stuff.
Fat back is fat from the back of a hog that is thinly sliced and quick fried. The grease is used to flavor vegatables and cornbread. The fatback itself is eaten somewhat like bacon. Most people eat a slice with their meal.
Chitlins are hog intestines that are cleaned, boiled and then fried before eating. They can also be used as a case for sausage meat.
Oh my, the mention of "sallet" (turnip greens) puts a smile on my face! To have a "mess" of sallet for "dinner" (lunch, to some) or "supper" (dinner, to some), seasoned with ham hocks or fatback, is still a treat, especially with a "pone" of cornbread, hmmmm, makes a rabbit want 'a hug a hound !!! Sweet tea for sure ! Fried peach pies made with real dried peaches from the tree in the yard, or garden, and fried (could be fried with lard) in a black iron skillet, dough sealed with a fork to keep the fruit filling from escaping while frying!!! Just 2 of my favorite southern dishes, I have many, many more since I live in Tennessee !!! You cannot beat those southern black ladies when it comes to cooking, they own the title of Soul Food in the south !
Did I just read fried peach pie???? LOL Ok I'm in love with Southern Food now!!!
Yes, to die for !!!! You roll out "homemade" pie dough/crust as thin as possible (appx 6" dia), put 2-3 T of fruit filling on one side, fold over, seal/crimp sides with fork, place in black iron skillet with oil, fry until brown. The filling is made from fruit of choice (mine is dried peaches), sugar, butter, pinch of this and that, lol – nutmeg, lemon juice !! Eat up !!! My mother-in-law makes the world's best, sorry to say, I can't make them.. :(
My grandmother used an empty "Rooster Snuff" glass to roll her dough out.
my favorite was apricot fried pies
My Mamma did the same with the apricots from the tree in her yard. Mnay fond memories here
When I was a kid, "sallet" was a green called Polk (or Poke) that grew wild. Some brave person figured out that the stems and berries were poisonous, but the leaves were very yummy, especially when scrambled with eggs.
Poke Sallet and fried racoon.... Yuuuumm. Unfortunately, Ihaven't had any since my grandmother passed away decades ago.
love me some polk sallet
So is it "Poke Salad, Polk Salad, Poke Sallet, or Polk Sallet Annie"?
Or all of the above?
Southerners don't eat fried raccoon. Thats what vegetarians eat in their fake meat.
I'm sorry, but I have never heard turnip greens referred to as 'sallet'. 'Sallet' is short for 'poke sallet', a weed that grows wild and must be picked early in the year when it just begins to shoot up out of the ground and gets a few leaves on it. It turns into a much bigger annual plant with purple/red berries.
You said it. Lawd have mercy!
Everybody knows it's not real Southern food unless it was cooked over a burning cross, amirite?
Spoken like a true bigot. This is a conversation about food.
You are not right, but you are a moron.
Oh yeah, the black cross shaped grate on the gas stove top that you put the pots on.
That was a rel stupid thing to say and now we all know that you are stupid.
LMAO! Now I feel stupid cuz I can't spell! Any how....
Yes and profound remarks like that make us all pine to be Northerners. (rolling eyes)
Some people think of Southern food just as you said AD; Grits, Collard Greens, Biscuits & Fried things are all very close to the heart. But at the beginning of the day, if I can grow it/raise it out back, then it's Southern Food. Heirloom Tomatoes, Peppers, Sunchokes, Kale, Garlic, etc. These are a few of my favorite things.
For me it's easier to address the concept of "Well that's Italian Food..." when I think of cheese. We've several farmstead dairies down here in GA, and plenty more in the Southeast who are gaining vast acclaim for their fine cheeses. Is a cheese that is made similar in fashion to a French or Italian cheese therefore also French and Italian? Nay. It is Southern Cheese. Terroir, and the passion that went into the preparation are all I need to call it mine own.
Much like drinking 2 wines made of the same varietal, yet produced in Willamette versus Burgundy, you'll find there are going to be striking differences in the flavor and intensity to grapes treated the exact same way.
The incensed gentleman ranting against Antipasti is not looking at the broader picture. Antipasti is no more than a term meaning 'before the meal' that is quicker to say as 'Antipasti' and readily brings to mind ideas of pre-dinner snackins'. Eating Local/Regional doesn't mean that we have to eat indigenously to some unnamed common era. Were that the case, we'd be constrained to little more than Bird Brain Stew, Succotash, Mutton, Tomatoes and a few helpings of Lima Beans and Corn thrown in.
And for the fine folks who don't enjoy bacon for dinner, that's their loss. Breakfast & Dinner, these are states of mind. When you have such a simple craving, why would you deny yourself? Anybody who has ever cured and smoked a pork belly, or even been around a bit of the action should have more than a healthy respect for this bit of meat candy. To limit yourself to off-brand bacon, and then further stricture yourself to 'breakfast' time consumption with a utilization as a 'side' is deplorable imho.
Yes, I am looking at the 'broader picture'. It doesn't matter what 'antipasti' means – the concept simply doesn't exist in Southern cooking. (Nor French for that matter – the hors d'oeuvre is a different beast altogether.) The same goes for your example with the cheeses and wines – Brie is not native to the South, and is not found in Southern Cooking. Neither is Burgundy. Make them down South all you want, and they're still alien imports.
So you're doing exactly what I was complaining about – handwaving and fancifying in order to justify calling a tail a leg.
As a southern grandson and cook, I too recognize the reverence my extended family and I have for "MawMaws cookin." Much of the enjoyment we get out of our Southern food comes as much from its great tastes as from the familial connection we feel to our ancestors.
Yes. To many of us, southern food is tied to the agrarian connection of our heritage, but not so much in the ingredients as in the admiration of our ancestral farmers. While most of us have left the farm over the past three to four generations, it is our grandparents that we remember, and their work on those farms that we connect with. My grandfather raised the pigs, grew the corn, and was well known in our Northwestern Georgia town for his bottled Sorghum syrup and sugar cane farm.
Ask anyone in my family and no one makes cornbread, sweet tea, cathead biscuits, or really anything like my mawmaw, and the same can probably be said for most southerner's families. I think what many see as "fu-fu'ing things up to the point of unrecognition" comes from a desire to maintain some semblance of southern tradition in our increasingly modernized, disappearing front porch swing world (even if that never completely existed, it does in our psyche).
Fortunately these recipes will survive passed down through the families. Problematically though, the traditional connections may continue to dissipate over the next 20-30 years as our farming grand and great-grand parents pass on, and our children lose the connection with their farming heritage.
Cathead biscuits !! Just the sounds of those words makes me smile.
JP, you are speaking my language. I'm from N Ga as well and come from a line of sharecroppers and family farms that have been sold during Depression era to become strip malls and subdivisions. I'm bringing back canning and gardening...and hopefully one day a farm to share with my family. Honeysuckles, the caucophony of crickets and tree frogs, and a sky where you can see the dust of the Milky Way. Keep the connection alive.
Having been born in North Carolina, and having a grandfather born in Virginia, I am well-versed on "Southern Food". I agree with the author's assertion that Southern Food really is food that knows its roots. One other important factor is the amount of time, effort, and love that is put in to the creation of a meal. Southern Grandmothers are known for the love they put into every dish they make, which is irreplaceable.
What most don't understand is that the over-processed, factory-farmed food we eat now doesn't hold a candle to "what grandma used to make". Our predecessors had much better access to the fresh, local, and wholesome ingredients that are now a novelty to most. A small example – have you ever had raw milk from a grass-fed cow or goat? How about meat from a heritage breed of livestock, or a true heirloom tomato or other vegetable? Quality of ingredients, along with time-honored traditions and family secret recipes make a huge difference.
True Southern Food is made with love, from the freshest ingredients available, and with little regard for modern concerns such as sodium and calorie intake. Southern wives and mothers of yore traditionally cooked for the men who were out doing manual labor all day. Lunch (known as Dinner in the South) was the main meal of the day, supplying the energy needed to get through hours and hours of manual labor before dark. Nowadays, with our much more sedentary lifestyle, "traditional" Southern Foods represent a huge amount of unneccesary calories and sodium, but are, nonetheless, delicious, and comforting to those of us brought up with them.
And AuroraDawn, technically, "Southern Food" and "Soul Food" are not the same, though the terms are often used interchangeably. Southern Food can be Soul Food, and vice-versa, but they are not mutually inclusive. Soul Food tends to have more creole influence, as most of it comes from recipes that date back to before the US acquired Louisiana from the French. For example, some consider gumbo "Soul Food", though most would not consider it "Southern Food".
What really is scary is that the Feds are trying to end the family farms and food production by "requirements" .Heirloom seeds we have in Dixie will be illegal. This hybrid stuff and livestock full of steroids is making us all sick.
When the dollar collapse comes and stores are empty of all of this, then we true bloods of the South will survive as we KNOW how to live off the land.
We did it during Reconstruction and the Great Depression and we can survive again. Sorry yankees , Yall will have to work for a change or get out.
Amen, darlin'!
Comments like that reinforce stereotypes about ignorant southerners. It's one of the reasons I USED TO BE southern.
Raised on southern cooking, Mom was born in TX and raised in Arkansas. It's good eatin'! Now I need hush puppies...
One of my fav hiudden gems in Denver. RichHead, if you ever find yourself driving through the MHC, I will take you to lunch here:
http://www.lincolnsroadhouse.com/
If Reverend Horton Heat plays there (middle picture of website with upright bass), then it must be a damn good place and worth a trip!
I use to pull double trailers for Mervyn's Dept stores before they went bankrupt. Hit Denver Malls all the time. Haven't been back there since. If I do I'll let Ya know and I"m buying.
Generations of my family have been making and serving on the table, perfect biscuits, fried chicken and fish, all manner of vegetables and brewed iced tea. My maternal grandmother's chicken pot pie was the Southern food equivalent of the little black dress. You city slickers would agree that you can't take the bagel out of NYC (something about the water?), likewise, if you weren't raised in the South, your hands will nevah, no nevah roll dough out for dumplings like we can any morning on the kitchen counter (our expert hands, the humidity?). And you gotta use a glass, not a biscuit cutter. There is no more indespensible tool than the black spider (skillet) in any Southern household, and we store it in the oven when not in use (that's hardly ever). Ummmmm. Before you suppose I've not been far north of the Mason Dixon, I'll admit to a few 3-5 star meals in the Big City.....they were pretty and all, but lack the conviction of routine, repitition and utlitmate perfection, cause we cook with patience and don't use a measuring cup.
Can your grandma fed ex me a chicken pot pie? :)
I once got in trouble as a teen when I was offered chicken pot pie and I said "Cool! Three of my favorite things!"
As you should have! Hope you got in big trouble for making a drug reference.
All this talk of biscuit cutters! My Mama never used one. She patted each biscuit out by hand. Every biscuit I ate in her home (just like McDonalds–"Billions and Billions Served") had the impressions of her fingers in the surface.
Does your family's cache of recipes include anything that's actually healthy? As in, a full meal under 600 calories that doesn't include dairy butter or animal fat? I'm asking this as a legitimate question. My great grandmother was a southern cook, and her recipes are filled with so much grease and fat I honestly can't stomach them.
Bless your heart.
Then your great grandmother didn't know what she was doing.
I have to agree that the extraordinarily well educated and refined chef may be gilding the lily. The true southern cooking of my family is not at all over-thought. It just happens with the stuff that was readily available to the country farmer and gardener, which, thank God, we are having closer access to all the time. Green beans simmered with fat back, okra fried in corn meal and flour, fried chicken...and hopefully the frying is done with some of the bacon fat saved from morning's breakfast....which by the way was cooked around 4:30 in the morning, by the tough as nails women who were feeding the tough as nails men headed out for a day in the field, on the railroad or in the coal mines. Salt of the earth feeds on salty, earthy food. Can't think of one of them that died before age 70...most made it to their 80's and near 90, still pinching snuff and eating the vegetables they grew in their own garden and meat from the local butcher. Soul Food and Southern Food are inexorably linked...the reality being that the southern diet has obviously, and delightfully, been influenced by African American culture. I think it's fair to link soul food to southern food without the racist connotations because it's food that feeds the soul. And from my own heritage, there were no slave holders....this is country southern food, raised, cooked and eaten by hard working, usually dirt poor day laborers, railroad workers and coal miners. I was going to cook spaghetti tonight, but I think we may have fried okra and country ham instead..............
YES! Same for my grandparents on the farm! Don't forget the crowder and field peas! And chicken-n-dumplings! I definitely think cast iron makes a difference AND I'm convinced that gas ovens do too. I have my grandmother's biscuit recipe and while they taste like hers, I just can't get the texture right – they were spongy and soft on top and I swear it's because she used a gas oven. My chicken-n-dumplings are her recipe too. I even use the old green bottle that she used for a rolling pin. Also, biscuit cutter? Never! They had to be pulled apart from the rest of the dough and patted into shape.
A big mistake in texture is kneeding the dough too long.
Southern cooking and not a mention of black walnuts! Southerners have enjoyed wild black walnuts in dishes for generations and, like wild pecans, are a part of a wonderful cooking tradition. Especially around the holidays at my house. Who can forget black walnut cookies or churning ice cream by an old wooden crank and pouring in some fresh black walnuts. My aunt would always do that on the Fourth of July. Delicious! To the above comment, soul food and southern food are somewhat similar in that the same foods can be in both categories. There really is little clear distinction so I'm not sure I can help all that much. Suffice it to say, they're different, but they're also the same.
It was always pecans at my mother's house in South Alabama.
I think that may be a microregional thing. I have no memories of Black Walnuts, but we used Pecans in the same ways you described.
No offense to David, but I do not care for black walnuts. They're always bitter tasting to me, and an odd flavor. But my dad loved them in ice cream, and my uncle loves to have them in cookies.
Hickory nuts and Pecans at my granny's house in north GA
My grandparents had a black walnut tree on their farm. Good treats came from that . I think the biggest thing about southern cooking is that there were a lot of vegetables, beans and peas. We spent eveninggs on the porch shelling peas. There were a lot of meals of just beans over cornbread with big slices of tomatos out of the garden and pickles made from the cucumbers in the garden. They were farmers and we ate mostly what they grew. They did have pigs and cattle for meat. One of the things that I liked best was cracklin cornbread. Really can't get that anymore. I also loved the corn that we would go out and pick off the stalk. Sometimes roasted and somtimes stripped and made into cream corn.
Yes David, black walnuts are delicious and we had them also. These were usually found in our woods – 300 or so acres.There are lots of delicious things that grow in the wild (I'm not speaking of meat for myself). There were wild mulberry trees, grapes, field plums, wild plum trees, huckleberries and blackberries. As stated in a previous reply, I was born and raised in MS. Oh, don't forget the home made fig & pear preserves. Good with biscuits.
Just wanted to comment on the author's search for true Memaw-style buscuits. She may find that the issue isn't with the ingredients or preparation, but rather with the pan in/on which they're cooked. Many Southern cooks use their mother's (or grandmother's) baking sheets and cast-iron skillets, that have decades of good flavor and tempering baked into them. I use several of my mother's, which are at least 50 years old. They're certainly cleaned after every use, so I'm not sure why it should make a difference, but items baked or fried in these sheets and skillets have an entirely deeper flavor than those prepared on my newer, "fancier" pans.
I think a lot has to do with the cooking pans. My mom is using cast iron pans from her grandma, and you just can't get that many years of flavor anywhere else.
I have my great grandmother's cast iron dutch oven and everything tastes better made in it. Southern food to me: sweet iced tea, fried okra (fried to almost burnt), pot roast made in cast iron dutch oven with veggies picked from Mema's garden, fried chicken, chicken fried steak, turnip and collard greens, cornbread made with white cornmeal with a tad of sugar and made in the oven with a cast iron skillet, any fresh garden veggie cooked til soft....I could go on and on. Sweet memories!
OMG! That's what I'm talkin' about! I'm from Southern Florida but a lot of people don't consider that the Deep South because of all the Snow Birds that have migrated South. I used to eat Fried Okra for breakfast and to this day I order it every time we eat at Cracker Barrell. How a Fried Potatoe Sandwich or some Swamp Cabbage from the Everglades? Or some Georgia Ice Cream (grits with lots of butter and salt!). Reading what you wrote was worse that watching an Unwrapped episode on Southern Cooking ... it made me soooo hungry!
Oh man! That's what I'm talking about – EXACTLY. You are making this Texas girl hungry with all that talk. Fried okra – picked from my Nanny and PaPa's garden was the FIRST thing I thought about. And some warm fig preserve over some home-made vanilla ice cream. Oh MY!!!!!
Lots of veggies...corn, beans, peas of all sorts.
Also, someone commented on conch fritters – FLORIDA. The South is a big place.
Tiss,
That is definitely the best way to fry okra in a big iron skillet! Stuff in restaurants just has too much coating.
Geez Southern Sue, now you're making this Texas girl's mouth water! I was just thinking of a big plate of Texas caviar, sliced tomatoes, cornbread, and fried okra (although pickled okra could be substituted). Then serve me up a big ole bowl of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla and Poteet Strawberries, and I'd be mighty happy! Is it May yet?!
Just to add a few other dishes: Chicken and handmade dumplings, good biscuits, all the fresh vegies – especially those delicious home grown tomatoes, cucumbers, fresh coconut cake from scratch, delicious banana pudding, etc. etc. I'm moving back to MS, mainly for the good food. My family ate kosher (not Jewish) – no ham, bottom crawlers, etc. and still my mother was the best cook in the world and not greasy. Don't forget the pepper sauce that had to be on the table with the vegies. When I left the south for Calif. it was hard for me to ever eat vegies/dinner without cornbread. We had home made biscuits, buttered, and mashed strawberries with cream – whatever fresh fruit in season every a.m. Also good molasses/syrup made in LA or MS. Can't be beat – I'm 69 and traveled lots of Europe and other places. Home made healthy wheat buns and loaf bread. I could go on and on. I'm petite and not obese and can down 6 biscuits when my sister makes them – she is the best next to my mother.
There is nothing like cast iron. I live in Brooklyn, raised in Texas, when I do a pork roast or ribs in my dutch over the neibhbors in my coop seem to appear with a pitcher if marguarita's. the trick is low & slow, low heat 250f and slow cooking @ 3 hours. If you like one can singe on the grill to flame kiss with some mesquite, add what ever sauce suits your fancy. An iron fry pan with lid is invaluable, home made corn bread with a crusty bottom, sauteed greens and the pan can be used to bake fish. I sometimes even fry in the darn thing
Not only the pans you cook with but the pans you mix with as well. Changes the texture of the batter. I mix my biscuits right on the counter. I might use a plastic mixing bowl. I will never use glass or metal.
Sue G you are absolutely right! It is the cast iron that really makes the difference! Corn Bread made in my old cast iron skillet just tastes better... It is the same recipe.
Cast iron definitely for cornbread but must be with bacon grease, not some PC oil. Blackeyed peas, turnip greens, with cayenne pepper sauce, and fried chicken and white rice with sausage gravy.
Bingo! I've not inherited any cast iron from my grandmother yet...thank goodness :) – but when that day does come I'm baking a big skillet full of cat head biscuits with chocolate gravy in her memory. Cat heads with chocolate gravy are my family's favorite treat.
OMG! Cathead biscuits with chocolate gravy! You must be from eastern Kentucky! That is my all time favorite comfort food. Yum!
While they insist they didn't change it, I don't think my biscuits are as light since Smucker's bought out White Lily.
You may not like this but lard will make the biscuits flaky and light as a feather.Lard is an old southern staple rarely used by southern cooks anymore.One time won't hurt a thing-Cut lard into the flour and use buttermilk instead of plain and see what happens.We still use lard.I don't care about the "potential health risk".I'll go when it's my time to go! Good luck with the biscuits
All Purpose Flour and baking powder can't replace Self-Rising flour for biscuits...vegetable shortening or lard and buttermilk are also requirements.
But getting the right consistency is the hard part...if you mix/knead/roll to much your biscuit will be tough. Mix as little as possible to get a light airy biscuit.
You are absolutely right! My mother bakes the best biscuits. She says it's because she uses the same pan she's used for over forty years!
Cannot beat catfish and hush puppies. Conch fritters as well.
Conch fritters?–Really? I grew up in South Alabama and I never heard of conch fritters until I got into college and met people from other cultures.
Amen brother. I live in DC now, and I miss fried catfish everyday. I metioned it to a coworker, and they respond "You eat catfish? Fried? How?" With sweet tea and slaw of course!
Don't forget the hushpuppies!
And a big wedge of raw onion. My husband is a California native, but I have him hooked on fried catfish eaten along with a bite of raw onion. Just something about the combo...
Once had a Sunday School Teacher who said her version of heaven was to have a 'catfish fry everyday and never ever have to worry about getting full or fat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hmmm Southern Food...well being Canadian I'm a foremost authority on such matters....no,not really. All I know about Southern food is...Grits,Collard Greens,Biscuits,Fried things with white gravy on top...etc. LOL I apologize, I really don't know much about it and I do not in anyway want to seem offensive but...that's pretty much how it's portrayed to us....now,can someone tell me is Southern Food and Soul Food the same thing?? Or is my mighty Northerness showing??
My Mom is from Alabama. So my upbringing was exactly the foods you mentioned. But it was more than that, it was her love and heart that she cooked those foods with. It was making do with the little that we had and yet when you tasted it you felt the love that was put into it.
I agree...it really isn't all about the expense of the ingredients.. it's about the imagination too.. all about creativity..a friend got me this hilarous cookbook for Xmas last year that uses unexpected ingredients in differnent places.. for example.. a pumpkin and pork chili, sweet potato and jalepeno balls, chicken curry tacos.. they are all so great.. the book is a little politically incorrect, so I won't tell you the name of it here...some of you will freak, but if you google "whipped and beaten culinary works" you can find it.. but seriously.. don't go if you can't take a good joke..
I am a native Alabamian and so was my grandmother. She was the penultimate Southern cook. Her biscuits were legend (when my grandfather was working, she cooked fresh biscuits every day, making enough dough in the morning to have biscuits for all three meals of the day), her fried chicken was perfection, and her chicken and dumplings are unmatched anywhere else I have eaten (Cracker Barrel comes the closest but doesn't hit the mark, one problem is too much pepper).
This is really a comment for Maggie: the word you are looking for is "Ultimate", not "Penultimate" which doesn't mean what you think. "Penultimate actually means next to last.
southern food and soul food are not the same thing. soul food is the food that is so greasy,sooooo good that it makes you feel extremely happy and you feel a sense of place. sothern food is just food cooked in the south. take it from me. im in the deep south
I agree. and I think that soul food has a tab bit more seasoning to me. I know people that make cornbread dressing(stuffing) but then I know people that make cornbread dressing w/ a tad more seasoning. Some people cook collards greens down here but when you had the piece of hamhock and a tab bit of sugar to those collard greens then that's some real souther soul food. Its all about the seasoning. Yea, I'm in the deep south the Fla panhandle
Southern food is the quintessential "comfort food", assuming you are from the south. One must be raised on some dishes that is an acquired taste, like persimmon or tomato puddin'. I have a wonderful old cookbook written by Beth Tartan, a food editor for many years in Winston-Salem, NC; NORTH CAROLINA AND MORAVIAN COOKING. It has a host of anecdotes, and history of southern foods and recipes. I have never had a failed recipe. The pound cake recipe has many stains on the page. It is 100% cholesterol, but luscious, and will make you "Slap your mama"!
Can I slap your "monkey?"
It is always enteresting reading readers passionate comments and opinions some people state that soul food is not southern food. I am from the deep south but now live in california in my travels I have eaten in Soul Food kitchens throughout the US (Oakland, Chicago, New York, LA) and never came across somthing that I hadn't eaten growing up in the Mississippi, Alabama, and Gerogia region.
I remember a few years ago my niece called and told my mother that she was going to bring her boyfriend from France.My mother asked me what would be good for dinner.I replied, how about snails.he'd like that.My mother ,believing I was serious said"Go to the store and see if you can find them and I'll fry 'em up for supper!!!
Soul food greasy? Some may be, but good soul food is far from greasy. When you find that place or that person that KNOWS soul food from the heart, it is hard to beat.
And yes sir, that is one genre of Southern Cooking.
I lived in Texas for eight years and trust me Southern food compared to other foods is totally fattening and makes you want to go to sleep. And people in the South need to be educated on what a portion is. BIGGER portioning does not make your food taste good. To any who has not tried Southern food please do not try it and you are not missing anything except for lard and grease.
That is about the most ignorant statement I have ever heard in my life! I was born and raised in Florida, and my family is from South Carolina. We know what Southern Food is. And, if it's THAT greasy, it wasn't done RIGHT! Southern food is a culture, just as any other culture in this land we live in. We're all regional and we all have our differences. If you hate our culture so much, LEAVE!
Yeah, and yankees for some stupid reason, act like they live on some mystical planet that is magical, low fat, and beautiful. Unfortunately, you all want to move down south to get away from price gouging, pollution, streets that are sewer filled, rusty cars, and hookers. You have brought your Mcdonalds, Burger Kings, Hardees, and all your commercial crap food and thrown it in every little town in America that doesnt need your dog food. GET EDUCATED, this is 2010. Everyone in America eats like crap, plus you. You are just another New Yorker wanting to sound smart. Thank God I dont read this much, and next time you yankees comment on the South being racist, take a look at what you are commenting on. HOLLA at ya BOY!!!!!!
Yes, please shut-up, Shut-Up. You're an idiot.
WHOOOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just finished my Large New York style pizza, Im feelin a little funny. Can someone call a doctor!!
Glad you moved on from Texas, we don't need ya down here, not all southern food is fat and greasy. Southern BBQ is the best you have ever tasted because like others have said, it has been cooked from the heart with lots of love and passion. It's all about the LOVE and PASSION!
Lawd, there is absolutely nothing more intolerable than a patronizing Yankee.
Southern cooking is all about cooking from the heart with lots of love and passion and the BBQ aint bad either. Long slow cooking over a low heat....it don't get any better than that......
Texas isn't the South... Sorry... It is mostly Tex-Mex food... I am from Louisiana and I think of Gumbo,Crawfish Etouffee, Shrimp Po-Boys, Boulettes, Dirty Rice...
@shut up; i agree with"you shut up" ditto, not to pile on you or anything sorry you haven't got a clue.....
As a North Georgia mountain native, I can only encourage everyone to remember a basic truth. Yankees are like hemorrhoids. If they come down and go back up, they're okay, but if they come down and stay, they're a real pain in the a$$. Thank you, Mr. ShutUp for going back up.
On the subject of run-away portion control: That is a pan-USA problem, and the overindulgence champion is Chicago. I have never seen portions of meat like they serve there.
Texas is not the South. I'm from the South and live in Texas now and I will tell you the food is not remotely close.
Please stay away from my South! Southern food is also about culture, family and friends...apparently something you missed out on. Just take your big cowboy hat, shout out "yah hoo" and hit up Burger King on the way home.
For anyone who says "Texas is not the South" - Yes we are. We were part of the Confederacy. TexMex is NOT Mexican food...it is part of the Southern family.
Texas is NOT Southern. Good Southern food is not greasy. A lot of the food is just easily available and very little is wasted when it comes to meat. Born and raised in middle Ga.
Oh please... Texas is full of great southern food. You obviously weren't here in Texas by choice because I think you would have something different to say if you had been. I grew up eating fried chicken and chicken fried steak, chicken fried chicken, grits, fried catfish, catfish and waffles, collard greens with the hamhock (that's the only true way), mac 'n cheese, biscuits and gravy... the list goes on (and I still wear a size 2). Southern food shouldn't be greasy and if it was you were at the wrong place. BBQ too... that is truly a southern food and each area has it's own style of cooking it and their own type of sauce. So please, don't tell me that Texas isn't considered the south. And that the food portions are bigger here, because while things may be bigger in Texas, food portions across the nation are just as big. Finally, please don't come live in Texas for 8 years and think you know what the south or southern food is. Because believe me, you don't.
Texas is not in the South? Southern food is greasy and bad for your? Unbelieveable. If Texas is not in the South, please explain what direction it is in, it looks pretty darn southern to me. As for southern food, Tex-Mex is out of this world and for the record, most variations are grilled and healthy with fresh ingredients. Have you ever tasted bbq that came from the south vs any other state?? It doesn't even come close. I am sorry, but there is not another region in our country that can even come close to claiming their own class of cuisine like the south can. I also suppose your favorite flavor of chili comes from a can.
I'm a native New Yorker who lived in TX for years and I loved the food for the most part. I'd never appreciated brisket till I had it in TX, and the Tex-Mex of course is the best. The only thing I didn't like is the catfish – I'm particular about my seafood. A lot of Southern dishes are fried, and of course that's fattening, but they still taste really, really good. I have managed to master the brisket, pulled pork, beans, chili and Tex Mex, but my biscuits suck. I'll keep trying.
You're an idiot. We're glad you left.
Texas isn't the south, it's the southwest. You don't see much in the way of collard greens or chitlins in Texas, but a lot more in the way of Tex-Mex and spicy BBQ (which is very different from Midwest sweet BBQ). I definitely don't consider Texas cuisine as "southern," since it's really in a class of it's own.
After reading some of these comments it's clear that "Southern Hospitality" is a myth.
What so many of the respondents to this post seem to be missing or glossing over is the fact that Texas is so big, it transcends these US regional/cultural boundaries. It's got some transitional zones where the local culture overlaps with neighboring regions, but more than anything, it seems to be its own thing. Yes, the state is geographically in the south of our country and yes, it was part of the Confederacy. San Antonio (where I grew up), however, is not what I'd call culturally or culinarily "Southern". Just because you've got a few restaurants going out of their way to serve some self-consciously "Southern" food there doesn't mean that the actual *local* cuisine is Southern - I can get collard greens and hush puppies where I live now in Maryland, but I don't think that necessarily makes Maryland part of the South; that food is an import here, just as it is in South-Central and Central Texas. Tex-Mex and the very German- and Czech-inspired food of San Antonio and the Hill Country do not fall under the heading of "Southern cuisine." If you start moving eastward (towards Houston, Beaumont, etc.), however, you're in a transition zone where things start looking much more Southern.
@yankeedoodle–Hardee's started in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, (a southern state) in 1960. Get your facts straight, please!
"After reading some of these comments it's clear that "Southern Hospitality" is a myth." Let's see how hospitable you are when someone drops in at your house and insults your cooking.
Shut Up, you don't have a clue about the south, do you? Are you calling bacon drippins greasy? Cornbread is a staple of the south and I am from Tennessee, I'll bet you have never had sweet tea, the sweeter the better, what about left over country ham in the warming oven on top of the stove, eaten with cornbread, cold, mighty tasty too, what about pinto beans or collard greens cooked with a smoked ham hock, what about deviled eggs, pickeled eggs, pickeled pig's feet, souse meat, smoked hawg jowl, turnip greens and pinto beans on new years day, chow chow with beans, wilted lettuce and onions with hot bacon grease poured over them? My list could go on and on and you have missed out on the best country cooking in the world. Have you heard the expression of "eating high on the hog", that is country ham, not store bought ham made from chicken and turkey. If you ever get close enough to the south, drop in at cracker barrel, this is mighty close to country cooking at it's best, take home a salt and sugar smoked country smoked ham and pick up a 25 pound bag of Martha White corn meal, white or yellow to make you some fine cornbread. The list goes on and on.
Glad you left the South.
More for me....
"I grew up eating fried chicken and chicken fried steak, chicken fried chicken, grits, fried catfish, catfish and waffles, collard greens with the hamhock (that's the only true way), mac 'n cheese, biscuits and gravy... the list goes on (and I still wear a size 2)."
Let's be honest. Southern food preferences just might have something to do with the high obesity rates in the South compared to elsewhere. Having said that, I'll take my chances.....especially with the BBQ!
Texas is rich with classic Southern dishes, but yes, they aren't the same as the Southern dishes served a few states East of us. Just like dishes served in Louisiana are not the same as dishes served in Georgia, but all of the dishes would be considered Southern. Texas is best known for its Beef BBQ, chili and spicier versions of Southern classics. It doesn't get any better than the grits and green chilies my Mom makes every Christmas morning served alongside a few tender pieces of brisket she stayed up all night slow cooking. Yum.
Southern food equals high obesity rates...the fact is in the pudding or in the "cornbread" so to speak...I moved to N.C. and 4 out of 5 people are FAT and 3 out of 5 are morbidly obese....this is a problem and everyone in the south knows it..
The biggest portions I have ever been served in my life were in Baltimore, Maryland. We went to a seafood restaurant and the fish covered the entire plate; we went to a "normal" restaurant and received 1/2 pound hamburgers and enough french fries for three people. It was so extreme I started calling it "City of Enormous Portions." I take this as a restaurant thing, though, not a Southern thing. I think you have to be a resident to know what southern food is, and I'm not.
Took you 8 years, living in Texas, to figure out you did not like Southern food. You know what food people must eat. Southern people need to be educated. Intelligent, diplomatic, or nutritionist is not on your resume.
Shut up. You are silly. Fried foods are not greasy when cooked at the correct temperature. Frying is a dry heat method of cooking, at about 360 to 375 degrees the gasses and moisture released from the food literally pushes the oil away from the food. Southern food is rich and delicious. If you have experienced fat, greasy, awful southern food then you need to go find a real cook who knows what he or she is doing.
Thank you "Knowing Yankee" for setting the record straight. Properly fried food is not higher in fat content. In fact many Baked foods, especially casseroles are much higher in fat content because there is no release mechanism to get rid of the fat. There are a lot of comments about Lard in this blog and honestly I don't know of anyone who uses it but It can be found in the Latino Foods section of some groceries.
And for the author who seems to be stressing out about biscuits, take a breath. Alll you need to make perfect biscuits is Flour, Salt, Baking powder, Real Unsalted Butter and milk. DO NOT use any measuring cups; you have to get a feel for it. just leaven your flour, cut butter into the flour by hand until it is about the consistency of slightly damp beach sand and add milk until it is spoon-able. Spoon into balls on baking sheet and bake at 350 until golden brown on top.
I've lived in the North, South, East and West U.S.
N, E, W are Butter, S is Crisco & Lard; N,E, W are Broiled T-Bone, Broiled Salmon Filet; South is Fried Chicken, Barbecued Pork; N, E, W are Baked Potato, S is Cole Slaw; N, E, W focus on international foods at home & in restaurants, South, nope. N, E, W are bold Arabica coffee, South is weak low grade coffee. N, E, W are water with lemon, S is sugar sweetened iced tea. Mainly in the South civil war is spoken at the dinner table. I the N, E, W, nope!
Get off your high horse! Just because you don't appreciate southern food doesn't mean you should put it down. I think it has plenty of fans or there wouldn't have even been a CNN article about it.
thats cause you're in texas (the soutwest) and not in the pure south. try eating in ga, sc, nc and then say you dont like southern food, your best bets for a great southern meal will be the restaraunts that look like holes in the wall but are awesome eats!
I'm a native Texas and I've lived in the Deep South since 1985 so trust me on this: While Texas and the Deep South are allies, their cultures and their cuisines are different. Don't equate Southern food with Texas cooking. For one thing, while both places love bar-b-que, in Texas that means beef and Down South that means pig. One thing central to Southern Cooking is the use and adoration of vegetables. Where I grew up, veggies usually meant salad. Here, they're cooked and seasoned and often the best part of the meal. Southern children don't have to be told to eat their vegetables; these things are good!
As a culture, Texans are associated with louder, brasher voices (you need it to yell over the wind!) while Deep Southerners were taught that well-bred people modulate their voices (except in football games). I would say the two areas are first cousins who like each other.
So please do not air your opinion based on limited information and experience. And if your portions were too big, it's polite to leave some and say, "no thank you, I just couldn't eat another bite" if anyone asks.
It looks to me that you never really liked Texas and that you have just picked on what you think is an example of 'bad cooking'! My Grandmothers would NEVER have allowed 'greasy foods' to be placed on their tables! We had the traditional dishes of mac 'n cheese (Nannie's version being the ultimate version with extra sharp cheddar cheese) and the other fried dishes, but again they were NEVER greasy! While many seem to think that Texas isn't 'really Southern' I do beg to differ. While we aren't Atlanta, we were all raised on Southern/Texas Pride! Sorry, folks but that is just the way it is. Family socializing is an important ingredient in all the recipes. Fresh veggies, fresh baked goods as well. So, I'm glad you left Texas-I for one can't wait until I get BACK!
I think that has to be the most uncalled for comment I have ever read. I was raised up in Seattle by a Southern Mama and Daddy and I can tell you that there is so much more to southern food than "lard and grease". There's the love and time spent making everything and I can tell you that I have my own well seasoned cast iron skillet to fry my chicken in because to be honest that's the only way to cook it. I'll pass on this tradition to my daughter when the time comes as well.
You think because we're southern or have southern roots we're stupid? Sorry but I think we're just as able to "portion" our food like you northern types – or do you think we're just un-edjemicated and unable to do that?
Damn it! Now all this food talk makes me want to fry up some chicken and make some grits with lots of butter. Midnight snack at my house anyone? lol
Your statement makes me draw bigg question marks???? What the heck you talking about? the cooking, the real cooking of Texas is none of what you described. maybe you've been eating at a Texas fast food joint and mistaking that for real food?
I'm am truly sad about your short, albeit, not pleasant eating experience in Texas. I was born and raised in Texas and although we did eat fried chicken & chicken fried steak we also ate many dishes that required no grease to make. Pinto Beans and Sausage, Lima Beans and Hamhocks, Cole Slaw and Bar-B-Que just to name a few. THe size of the portions served goes back many generations in the history of Texas when the vast majority of people physically worked out doors and it was considered extremely rude not to provide enough food at meals, to include cafes and resturaunts. Perhaps you should order the children's portion or as others have said, relocate to where the serve you what you like & how you like it, but then people who complain all the time are rarely satisfied.
Wait so the south is the only region with fat people and it is because we fry a lot of food? I seem to remember traveling through Wisconsin a few times, every state has a population that needs to diet. This whole Texas not being part of the South debate is stupid. Geographically Texas is in fact in the South but this is about a style of cooking not geographic location. When people refer to southern cooking or the deep south they are talking about NC down to FL and over to AL and LA (the state not the city, sad I had to say that). Southern food is not all fried. Every hear of a crab boil, crawfish boil? We fry food, bake food, cook over an open flame, cook it in the ground, every manner you can think of. The difference is ingredients and the way it is prepared. In the south many people had to eat what they could find so they could have dinner and this carried over into Southern style cooking as it is today. I ate at a roadside BBQ yesterday for a church and had some good ole soul food which is a different style of southern cooking, ribs that cant fall off the bone lol cause that is how it is supposed to be. TexMex is south west cooking that incorporates southern elements (not geography again people). The obesity epidemic in this country is not limited to the south and to think so is incredibly ignorant, just because we talk slow doesn't mean we are stupid.
Shut-up, southern food is not about grease, it's about flavor. Yes, there are southern dishes that are fattening and unhealthy. And, how much you eat of those and how often is what makes the difference. But then, there are northern dishes that are the same. Being a food lover myself, I appreciate all types of cooking, be it southern, northern, Italian, Mexican, etc. To people who have a real appreciation of food, it makes no difference, we like them all. And to Yankeedoodle, I am a transplanted "Yankee" and have lived in NC for 15 years. I came because I love my country and I could. It had nothing to do with "your" south. My twins were born here, so what does that make them? That's the problem with people, they think that their area is the only representation of the U.S. when it is all the areas, collectively. I live in a great country! And, fast food didn't just originate in the north. By the way, a great southern cookbook is the Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook is great! Let's appreciate our country and the excellent food it has to offer, among other things, instead of being divided. The war is over!
GREAT! The GREAT "Is Texas the South question". I posted this on facebook and my wall BLEW UP. I say it's NOT because of the types of food they eat isn't traditional southern.
Nothing but a troll. Probably never been in Texas a day in his life.
Not too many of us are eating good southern cooking anymore. Everything is comming from a box or takeout. Cooking in the south use to be an all day job. It's true, it can be fattening but we were suppose to work it off; not sit and watch TV. The greasy spoon cafes are not serving good food of any kind. Sorry you got fat while here.
The problem with Texas is that the post-WWII boom has completely overwhelmed the original Deep South tradition. As one commenter suggested Texas is also too large and culturally diverse to take on a single label as "Southern." Plus you have the problem of Louisiana separating Texas from the Deep South and that is a culturally VERY large gulf/divide to cross. When you get over to southeast Texas like Beaumont/Orange the Cajun influence starts to shine. Many people celebrate Tex-Mex but in reality this a relatively new tradition among non-Hispanics. Probably the one thing that unites Texans is its unique style of BBQ.
But with all that said most native Texans (I say most because there are many native Texans whose parents were transplants following the post-WWII boom) know what grits are and enjoy them which for me is the quintessential distinction. The mystery lies in the fact that grits, to focus on a single food, are what you eat at home. I had no idea that grits were a regional food until I was well into my 20s. You don't go out to a restaurant to order grits the same way you don't order a bowl of cream of wheat. And such it is in our home. We cooks grits for my kids all the time because 1) my wife and I love them and 2) my kids love them. We don't eat them everyday. There is nothing special about our grits other than you have to live in the South to find them at a grocery store which we sorely discovered when we moved to Chicago for a couple of years. And in a 10 or 20 years my kids will undoubtedly feed their kids grits and the Southern tradition will continue!
I love you!! I have been in the south for 5 years, and YOU ARE SO RIGHT! Not like I wanna be here–my job requires it. I can't wait to get back up North where people actually CARE ABOUT THEIR HEALTH!!! Grease, lard – fry everything, even veggies. Way to make good stuff UNhealthful! And okra? What's up with that? Green slime...yummy. Never saw that before...never want to. Might as well eat some snot.
hm.. Although I do hate it down here (Pensacola), it's mostly just Florida not so much the South as a whole; I gotta say, I love Louisiana. With that being said, the one good thing about the South, in my opinion, is the food. Ha! I love the seafood especially, but southern barbeque is amazing also. I cannot stand grits though. Washington state does great seafood as well but one cannot really compare the two honestly. Southern style of cooking is just *different,* in a good way.
Damn, there are some hate-filled Southerners trying to find excuses for the FACT that Southern food is fattening, salty and greasy. I ain't saying it tastes bad, but anybody who denies the negative health effects is whistling too much Dixie or drinking too much moonshine. And as a guy who has lived in NC, SC, FLA, LA and Texas I got my Southern papers in order.
As a real southerner, we don't consider Texas one of us. They want to be their own country and I think we should just let them. It looks like some Texas rubbed off on you too. You're a good ole Texas idiot aren't ya. And texas' version of southern cooking is a joke my friend. yeah I've been there. Texans claim to have the best barbeque but I'm sorry, beef ribs ain't real barbeque. They don't even taste right and what's with that texas sauce? Could it get any soupier? You may as well just pour vinegar over your oversized, way too tough beef ribs. This is the very reason why every legitimate barbeque competition generally crowns a champion who cooks it memphis or carolina style. Sure Kansas city wins a few too. They make a fine product with the st. louis style spares. But nothing beats the baby back my friend so before you go off about how southern food sucks and base it entirely on what you learned in the dumbest state in the nation, try some real southern food. Ain't nothin like it nowhere. I've never met anyone who didn't like true southern cuisine.
Southern food is much broader than grits, bacon, and collard greens. The "South" is a big place. Each area has its own style. You have Cajun and Creole from Louisiana, and Charleston "Low Country" from South Carolina to southern costal North Carolina. You have Appalachian Mountain cuisine and much more.
I'm from Wilmington North Carolina, so I was raised on Low Country style. This includes rice dishes like Hoppin John and Purloo. Plus lots of costal seafood like shrimp and grits, shad roe and eggs, she-crap soup, etc.
If anyone is interested in the history of southern food, I would highly recommend Bill Neal's "Southern Cooking". It includes traditional recipes from each area along with the history of each dish. This book has become one of the Bibles of southern cooking.
You tell it right on the Wilmington way of eating southern! It's true, Wilmington is my hometown but recently moved to the western part of the state and there are many similarities in the way foods are prepared but not doubt there are rmany regional differences as well. You won't get the good seafood here (too far from the coast to be fresh) and the bar-b-que is pulled pork or beef with sweet sauce. On the coast it is pork that is vinegar based and chopped. There is southern cooking and then there is country cooking. There are differences between the two, regionally and nationally. One person said it's about the heart behind the preparation and that is the truth!
Wow! lots of division here, I've lived in NC, SC and MS (right around the corner from N'Awlins) :) I'm originally from Seattle, sooooo what an education. The barbecue is out of this world up around the winston-salem area, there is no place better for shrimp and grits than Charleston and if you want cajun go to New Orleans. If you want brisket, Texas is the best. There are some things I never developed a taste for, collard greens is one but you havent lived until you've eaten Mac&Cheese from a southern cook or fried green tomatoes or, or or....... As far as the weight issue? LOL, I'm thinking the problem is more the heat than the food......it was too hot to get out and excercise there!!! Stay out of the heat and humidity and keep cool in the air conditioned house! Until you've actually lived in these areas or at least experience them with an open mind you shouldnt make assumptions. Southern food is awesome!!!! I have learned some great dishes to add to my trusted many and if I cook my husband a mess of shrimp and grits the way it is supposed to be made....he will forgive any transgression past, present or future!!!
It is chauvinism on your part, AD. I mean Canadian cuisine is more than flapjacks, right?
Chauvinism??? I'm not quite sure how you could come to that summation. Flapjacks aren't Canadia btw. But,yes Canadian cuisine encompasses many different components. Very few being distinctly Canadian. If you could possibly see any negative connotation in anything I stated please point that out. I admitted I knew little of the cuisine of the South....hence the question. I thought that was self explanatory...apparently not.
Seeing how the Cajuns were driven out of the New Orleans area into Canada is it possible that their southern cooking went with them? If so then their is couthern cooking in Canada.
Popeye,
You got it wrong in the direction. Cajuns were force out ot northeastern Canada because the wouldn' swear allegiance to King George and migrated down the eastern coast of the USA, landing many places including New Orleans.
The merged with the Creole people from the Caribean islands and became the Cajuns.
-–Jon -–
P.S. Born and reared in Arkansas
YES southern food and soul food are one in the same.. but there is more than the foods you listed..Burnswick stew and Bar-B-Que are truely southern food
Soul food is a subset. It is not synonymous.
As for the southern/northern thing, there are plusses and minuses in both directions. I'm from the south (Shreveport) and my wife is from the north (Chicago). I've heard northerners refer to the indirect and often inscrutably subtle way that southerners communicate as being "dishonest" and I've heard southerners refer to the overly direct way that some northerners communicate as being crude and brutish.
Having witnessed the northern invasion first hand, though, I must say that the level of courtesy and concern for each other that once was a hallmark of southern culture is nowhere near what it was thirty years ago. There is a lot of resentment down here for the culture of self-interest and discourtesy that arrived with the influx of northerners.
To JFairweather: You said: “Having witnessed the northern invasion first hand, though, I must say that the level of courtesy and concern for each other that once was a hallmark of southern culture is nowhere near what it was thirty years ago. There is a lot of resentment down here for the culture of self-interest and discourtesy that arrived with the influx of northerners.”
I am tired of being bashed by southerners. Talk about smug and self-righteous!
I don’t know about the northerners you encounter, but they are not people I know. I’ve lived in New York State most of my life, currently living upstate. The people here are very caring, supportive, kind, and courteous. We take care of our neighbors and our friends and try to make a good life and a good community for our children.
You are stereotyping an entire region based on the northerners you’ve met who are not pleasant. What does that gain you? What makes you think it's not the southerners around you who have become less concerned and courteous.
Take care. There are people here, nice people, not just stereotypes.
Wow,Brunswick Stew, some call Frogmore, is quintessential south coast food! I pine for it. As a girl I loved the varied foods from Wilmington south to Florida. Friday night Fish Frys and hush puppies my mom made all the time in Lowland Charleston. (My Mom's were the best - football shaped, not round, delicate, not heavy, packed with flavor. She was a Navy wife and picked up the recipe she used in NC or SC). Moon pies and RC cola for breakfast when it was hot! (No AC in the old days and I'm sure it shut up a few cranky kids). And I knew no fat kids. I kid you not! Good memories of Sweet tea, (which isn't just regular old iced tea with sugar), tidewater style Virginia sweet bbq on a bun with cole slaw on top Yorktown style. Love the BBQ varietals as you move around the South. Various kinds of "Greens" – turnip or collards or even kale cooked with bacon grease, red pepper flakes, maybe some sugar and vinegar added at the table. I still cook grits with bacon grease and red pepper flakes and serve with red eye gravy for breakfast for my slender son. Fried chicken hearts, liver and gizzards... Oh and has anyone mentioned a blast from my past - goobers - boiled hot peanuts? Not the drowned, disgusting ones in the mini marts, but fresh made and fragrant from a vendor with a mobile cooker and sold in a damp little brown paper bag on the street like when I was a kid in Charleston? Delicious. Almost forgot Eastern shore crab cakes, oyster fry, whole soft-shell crab sandwiches and the to die for Maryland brown paper on the table dump 'em out and eat the mustard crab feast – a pure delight!
For me Southern food is all about buttermilk biscuits, Brunswick stew, Smithfield hams, bitter greens etc. I don't cook greasy food due to health reasons and a lot of Southern Food isn't' greasy. I'm not a fan of blue crabs but my family is big on them when they go to VA Beach.
I remember the first time I ordered Brunswick stew in Charlotte, NC. I thought I had ordered tomato soup by mistake. Turns out a lot of Charlottans put katsup in everything.
Then they ain't from 'round here! The influx of northerners has changed and IS changing my beloved South everyday. People move here thinking it's the "land of milk and honey" then start changing things to the way it was where they came from. If you like the South and moved here to be part of it, THEN BE PART OF IT – not APART from it. Don't complain about the way things are done here; it's what makes a region special culturally. The good southern cooking that I grew up on is fast fading away because the generation of cooks who are expert in it are aging out. Even the southern accent will be gone in a few more generations, Heaven forbid. We are strong, beautiful and gracious – and not like any other region of the US. Accept us as we are or stay out. Thank you very much.
Oh my word. As an Alabamian, please allow me to apologize in advance for the ugly remarks made by "SouthernSue," and she calls herself "gracious." If you're an "outsider," you're welcome here, and welcome to sit at our table anytime. Be part of it . . . add to it . . . whatever, you are welcome to share. "SouthernSue"? well, bless her heart (code for 'you stupid ..tch); ev-ah-dent-lay, her Mama didn't teach hur any mannahs. Besides, I see she is from Texas, which isn't really part of the South – Texans go to Mexico City to get their passports. whhhhoooo wheeee, I'm slappin' mah knee!
The problem with deciding what is southern food is that no one here can decide what region of the south you are talking about. If you travel from town to town in NC alone what is considered brunswick stew in the area around Raleigh is a tomato based assortment of what would have been the day befores left overs in the kitchen or at the restauarant. In Mount Airy it is more like a gravy based stew. The same is true for barbecue that varies from a vinegar base to a tomato base. From what I can tell the vegtables are often more cooked then they are in the north and that may be due to what others have said about putting more love in the cooking and just cooking the items for a longer period of time. Like most parts of the country, the south was and is still made up of many different people and cultures. While you may not have had the influence of italian or chineese people in the area what you have is food that is based on the ingredients available. If you look at southern food, as most people think of it, the food is what the poorer people in society made, yes the more wealthy ate it, but the food was cooked by lower income people. Many of the items were seasonal unless the food could be preserved by smoking, pickling, salting or canning. Country ham, chicken and a bunch of different pork products are what makes the staples as these were available and affordable. Biscuits were a staple that could be taken out in the fields and most people could make them. Gravy was a bonus of cooking meats. The "chefs" at Eatocracy are trying to claim they came up with something we never heard of such as just picked vegtables. sorghum – a Southern crop Hopkins is doing his best to evangelize and revive will only be popular in few parts of the country as sugar is readily available and affordable. If there was not a market for sorghum before Hopkins the farmers would not have been growing it. Sorghum would be a niche crop for a few farmers.
Like some have said Southern Cooking it just eating what was available taking simple foods and turning them into memories. Everyones grandmother's biscuits were better and someone else made great ice tea or desserts. It was that special ingredient "most say it was love" that made southern food and hospitality what people want to remember.
pixie from dixie here and virginia 66 and childhood memories said it all.
and the amount of smithfield ham in the greens is very small, it is the slow cooking that does it......southern food is slow food. now that really is secret, but I am giving it away here for the reader so it will be accurate.....not much calories or fat, they are greens they are good for you...........enjoy ya'll and black eyed peas for new year's.........use hot sauce if you do not want the pork.....have a long and happy life and a prosperous 2011.........it's in the HOW it is done, not just the WHAT.
I lived in the mountains of North Carolina for most of my life and my idea of Southern is corn-beef hash, slow-cooked stew (with beef, carrot, potato, and onion), green beans, cornbread out of a seasoned iron pan, and black-berry cobbler. Thanksgivings used to serve hog instead of turkey.
BTW I think this author has amazing writing style. This article was such a pleasure to read.
My idea of a good meal is pintos with ham hock, cornbread, fried fatback, mixed greens with bacon drippings, fried okra, mashed potatoes and sweet tea. OR hickory smoked spare ribs and white bread (also with sweet tea).
I'm in North Alabama, too. I was with you until you said fried fatback. Not one of my favorites. But, that meal would sure be good with fried porkchops. Yummmm Don't forget the slice tomatoes and chunk of onion.
Mmmm....Has me thinking about our traditional New Year dinner. Black-eyed peas, collard green, cornbread, and pork chops (or roast).
You've got it pretty much right. Of course, there are other southern foods, but the ones that you named are staples.
Since I really never had a place to call home (weep, cry, sigh), I'll be the impartial judge of all that is Southern cooking. Also adding to my credentials of having lived in NC for two thirds of my life, I married a Southern belle who has lived there for 300 years and has never been out of the county, except to ride an escalator with me hand-in-hand in the big city.
My wife can't cook. Well, let me say she can't cook like her mom. But, boy, they both sure like to cook. Her mom passed away about five years ago and we got a jar of her canned beans on the book case for posterity. We'd put it in a museum if we thought people would take care of it.
And cook books?! We got 'em all over the place, especially in the bathroom. Just in case the paper products run on the low-side.
Lately my wife has taken to cooking two meals at a time, morning, noon, and night. I don't know what that's all about. I sure can't keep up. But I figure the cats, dogs, deer, and other animals will eat fine and we'll have the best compost pile in the Spring.
My wife must want to cook every recipe she finds or can think up, and the only problem beside it going to the bad before we're done finished with the next, is that she hardly remembers the good ones or how she made them.
But here is what makes Southern cooking Southern. Turning off the TV, everybody pulling up a chair, taking off their caps, bowing their heads in thanksgiving, and being courteous about making sure everybody gets their fill before they dive in for seconds. Being so stuffed that when dessert is mentioned, everybody waves it off for later in the evening. Well, maybe just a bite now. And then helping with the cleaning and dishes with a warm hug and compliments to the chef.
Heck, I'm never the chef. I don't have the love or compassion to fix more than an entree with no sides. Everything's got to be done in a Yankee minute. I can cook, believe you me. But as far as love goes, my wife's big efforts at a tasty meal that come off only part-ways sometimes are still much more appreciated than anything I can make.
Our kids think Mom is the king, and they remember Grandma just fine in any of the cooking my wife does. I suspect that when my wife passes away, everyone of the kids will want one of her cookbooks to remember her by, just like the jar of green beans on the shelf. And they'll cry.
It's the same thing :)
One thing I remember growing up in the south was something on the stove all day long steaming.Collards,turnips,chicken and dumplings or pork neckbones.My mother and her mother would just about always start dinner right after breakfast.After smelling dinner cooking all day I couldn't get to the table quick enough it seemed.
All this talk is making me hungry.....I think I'll go make myself a mess of Charleston style grits, with lots of cream, butter and cheese!!!! I think I have the fixins for some cornbread too..... LOL
I'm back in Seattle and am really missing getting some good southern cooking!
AuroraDawn at least you are honest with your post.
If you ever get down this way get you some breakfast that consist of biscuits with chocolate gravy, fried bacon, grits.
And you don't have to proportion it you can pile it cuz you are gonna go outside and work it off anyway.
I'm a northern too, and soul food is any food relative to a certain region or culture. Jewish soul food can be found at all new York delis, and Mexican soul food is Mexican food!
Southern food is not unitary. Ingredients are important but more so is the style in which those ingredients are prepared. I'm from Mississippi and Mississippi southern style is different in some ways from South Carolina southern style or Virginia southern style, etc. The authenticity comes from tradition. In my humble opinion, all food that is traditional to its own place in the south is SOUTHERN FOOD even if it is prepared in a way distinct to a particular part of the south. And yes, soul food and southern food are the same, even if you don't recognize the regional style as what you consider "authentic."
You're not offensive at all. All those things you mentioned are very southern foods. I would like to attempt to clarify something about the use of the terms southern food vs. soul food. If you are from the south – its the same thing. If you are from outside the south, most people think of "soul" food as food prepared/preferred by black people. Biscuits, gravy, hog jowl, fried chicken, collard greens, red-eye gravy, grits and even the racist references to watermelon if eaten in the south is culturally, a southern food. Soul food is a term used outside the South who aren't always aware that blacks and whites are culturally the same down here when it comes to food. So, stereotypical, racist "jokes" about 'watermelon' and 'fried chicken' isn't viewed by white southerners as a slam just against blacks; it's a slam against any southerner – black or white. i.e., Remember a few years ago, some golfer made a crack about Tiger Woods eating chicken. Northerners and Westerners got upset and called it racist because Woods was half black. Welp, black and white people in the South saw it as a slam against all Southerners, historically thought of as poor and ignorant people. Same thing with watermelon jokes – offensive to both blacks and whites, because it's a southern tradition. Dragging a watermelon out of the patch, putting it in the creek to get cold, giggling children struggling to haul it up in the yard when the relatives get there, handing out the miniature paper Morton salt shakers that you buy by the bag, slicing it up and handing it out – children first (the only time children get to go first), then grown-ups is a southern tradition shared by both blacks and whites (and some non-southerners might find it surprising that it is often shared together). To sum it up . . . if I (white) were sharing some fried chicken with a black friend in New York City, we'd probably call it "soul food" to the Yan-kays sittin' next to us . . . but, when nobody was looking, we laugh together and revel at the "good 'ol Southern home cooking."
Excellent comment Idean!
Soul Food originates from the Southern African American culture. It uses more vegetables and spices and incorporates meat that some of the upper White Protestant Southerners found unplatable (i.e. livers, gizzards, dark meat). Obviously numerous Southerners of all races now eat the same dishes, but there was, in my lifetime, a class system associated with such foods. My Georgia belle grandmother would not serve catfish or, gizzards, dark meat, etc. because to her it was considered lower class.
I was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.... A modern day Buffalo soldier – and this myth that one must come from the south in order to make authentic Southern cooking is ridiculous... the recipes for candied yams and sweet potatoe pies, collard greens, and chitlins didn't come from the genteel South... they were just continued there by the stolen african peoples who ended up enslaved there. These recipes come from Western Africa. And anyone that tells you otherwise is a damned fool. The simplicity of the foods and the absolute use of every edible portion comes from peoples who had very little and used creativity from necessity. The foods and dishes were considered beneath the white peoples 'of good family" 's table back then (poor whites of the time emulated the blacks because it tasted good and was economically a good move) and this cooking style has only seen a resurgence recently -simply because they were so damned tasty. These nouveau- Southern cooking people can take a chill pill. If you want good authentic southern/soul food ask any black woman/ or poor white woman – currently living in the south or transplanted somewhere else (or thier kids) to fix you some- any day of the week. But you should hurry- my generation- last of the boomers hasn't effectively communicated the recipes- its slowly dying....
ahhh yes, my Mom's southern cooking that I brought here to the north. "Fried Bread?" they say here, "What does that mean?" until I serve them a nice fried white bread or cornbread. My kids keep running back home for more (and bring their spouses I might add)
Soup beans around here were just plain white beans where I come from and you doctored them the same way with hamhocks..YUMMY! I really like the dumplings my mother made compared to the ones around here (I have yet to get that good).
My husband (that is from here) talks about the love I put in my dishes and he is right. You must love the food and love the people you serve it to. Let it be simple and flavorful. Sample it, stir it and mix everything to until it has that "thing" that makes it right.
Soul food is sort of a niche of southern food. While soul food tends to be centered around specifically Southern black cooking, southern food can encompass a variety of culinary genres including cajun, low country, texan, etc... In many ways, however, soul food favorites have come to occupy many southern plates across the spectrum. Collard greens and other boiled root vegetables were brought over from the African food traditions across the pond through slavery, who also began incorporating rice and okra into the cuisine as well. Many of the famous white southern cooks of today could more than likely trace honed family recipes to the back kitchens of slaves. Native American cooking methods, such as smoking meats, and the use of corn in a large variety of ways is also an important part of the South's culinary heritage. Long story short, Southern food is a hat that covers many many heads of all kinds.
–Southern girl from South Georgia, born and raised.
AuroraDawn, my family has lived in "the South," since long before the Revolutionary War, and soul food is NOT the same as southern food. Soul food is what was typically fixed by black people and was what was less expensive since their income was usually less. Southern cooking is also NOT frying everything. In the summer a typical southern meal would be all vegetables and fruits straight from your garden – green beans, fresh sliced tomatos, melon, new potatos, squash, okra, of course cornbread, and blackberry cobbler. In the winter the meals would be heavier. You might have country ham, mashed potatos, biscuits and vegetables that you canned or froze over the summer. In our family biscuits were most typically served at breakfast and cornbread was most often served at dinner. Breakfasts were usually large and lunch and dinner smaller. Roast beef was served more often than fried chicken. That may have been because my grandfather raised beef cattle.
To answer AuroraDawn's question: southern food and soul food is too different things. Soul food is made with more care and love and it's made to share. & to jane chambers, there is a region of foods and drinks! Where we, southerns, eat biscuits, Northerns eat rolls. and Whereas, we Southerners like sugar in ice tea, Northerners don't! I'm from North Carolina but I live in DC and you can tell the difference. We can go even further than all the delicious dishes that JW from Texas named. Like fried green tomatoes, homemade jam or pickles or snap peas RIGHT out of the field, pickled pig feet, Souse meat, etc....How it was explained to me it was the best way to use what you had you fried the meat and then use the grease to make soap. But there is definitely a difference between regions. Even within regions I.e. NC bar-b-que vs. SC bar-b-que....
Is Southern food and Soul food the same thing? Coming from a native of Mobile, AL. who's Mother made biscuits that taste better thans many cakes Ive eaten, the answer is YES.
My husband and his family are from the Buffalo area. They have been very open to learning about Southern food, and I learn with them (even though I did grow up in Alabama). Check out propersouthernwoman.com for more information.
"Grits,Collard Greens,Biscuits,Fried things with white gravy on top..." there's nothing wrong with that list, especially when you add local shrimp, lima beans, tomatos... I've never had to classify Southern vs. Soul before, let's just say they are close kin, one with an irish grandmother, the other with a Sierra Leonean ancestor.