|
A traditional southern lunch place will have a simple "meat and three" menu. You pick one meat from a list that usually includes chicken fried steak, chicken fried chicken (which is a boneless chicken breast), a slice of ham, a chopped steak, and often pot roast. Then you pick three sides from a list of one or even two dozen vegetables and starched. The table will always have a bottle of vinegar with green peppers in it and a bottle of tabasco type sauce. Mashed potatos, rice, and macaroni and cheese will always be available. The veggies will always include at least one type of green bean and one type of green (collard, mustard, or spinach). The beans and greens will be boiled within an inch of their lives and be flavored with some form of pork (fatback, ham, or bacon).
Sausage gravy is certainly a southern dish, but there are others, such as red-eye. That is nothing more than "ham juice" in my opinion. Grits are a big breakfast item. Quick grits are fine, but instant are not. Cheese is optional, butter is mandatory.
A seperate forum should be dedicated to each style of BBQ, which by they way never involves a grill or charcol.
Southern cooking is like any other. There is good and bad. There is good quality and there is slapped together food good for nothing more than calories. Many of the ingrediants and techniques are being adapted to finer cooking. The above mentioned Buckhead Diner is an excellent example. Still, there is something about a good biscuit with country ham.
__________________
I was there to see beautiful naked women. So was everybody else. It's a common failing.
Robert A Heinlein in "They Do It With Mirrors"
|