100 Southern Foods

SWEETS

Boiled Peanut Cotton Candy
McCrady’s
Charleston, South Carolina
Playfulness gets short shrift in too many restaurants. Not at McCrady’s, a brick and timber tavern dating to 1788. Chef Sean Brock is a devil child genius who, working with various Rube Goldbergian devices and sundry chemical compounds, fashions lobster-scented Cheetos and barbecue-flavored Dippin’ Dots. Of late, he’s been fiddling around with cotton candy, the spun-sugar conceit that Australians call fairy floss. Bacon cotton candy has emerged from his kitchen. Ham cotton candy, too. What’s more, he has been known to whip boiled peanuts into a cirrus of spun filament and float said cirrus atop almost anything, most remarkably a consommé of foie gras. (mccradysrestaurant.com; 843-577-0025)

Caramel Cake
Buck’s One Stop
Calhoun City, Mississippi
Mark Goodson sells cardboard pizza by the cash register. But alongside, in a glass-fronted case, house-made caramel cakes sparkle. Their icing has a supple and durable drape that might be best understood as a cross between fondant and armor. (662-628-6822)

Chocolate Peanut Brittle
Good Earth Peanut Company
Skippers, Virginia
This clapboard two-story country store sells peanuts. Butter parched. Salted to hell and back. And, best of all, fused into a brittle, broken into squares, and double dipped in chocolate. (goodearthpeanuts.com; 800-643-1695)

Coconut Pie
Jim ’N Nick’s Bar-B-Q
Birmingham, Alabama
The bouffant on top calls to mind a nouveau riche belle, fresh from a midday curl and tease. The coconut curd beneath smells like Coppertone, circa 1976. And I mean that in a good way. (jimnnicks.com)

Devil’s Food Donut
Spalding’s Bakery
Lexington, Kentucky
Gnarled and misshapen and beloved, these devil’s food cake doughnuts look and taste like Beelzebub’s idea of a bonbon. Less dramatic, but no less delicious, are the everyday glazed yeast rounds that emerge, crisp and grease sheened, from Spalding’s fryer banks. (859-252-3737)

Fried Coconut Pie
Mrs. Armstrong’s Fried Pies
Centerville, Tennessee
Bite into a crisp half-moon of dough, and a curd of coconut reveals itself, creamy and sticky, a platonic treat. Dark and gritty with sugar, Carolyn Armstrong’s fried chocolate pie lags by a quarter mile, but it still pretty much kicks any other pastry’s arse. (sweetnothingsfriedpies.com; 931-729-1470)

Fried Peach Pie
The Varsity
Atlanta, Georgia
I speak fluent Varsity, which means I know the difference between a naked steak and a glorified steak. And I know that the sleeper eat at this drive-in on steroids is the fried peach pie, a pillow of dough encasing a cobbler of goodness. (thevarsity.com)

Modjeska
Muth’s Candy Store
Louisville, Kentucky
Named for a Polish actress I’d never heard of, this caramel-coated marshmallow slider of a candy is pleasantly pliant. Which means you’ll pop three in your mouth like Tater Tots and soon dog cuss the way they entangle your molars (shop.muthscandy.com; 800-55MUTHS)

Muscadine Meringue Tartlette
Carrboro Farmers’ Market
Carrboro, North Carolina
Grape hull pies are age-old, and “Farmer’s Daughter” April McGreger is a whippersnapper of a baker. From a stall at her local farmer’s market, she peddles all manner of old and new sweets, including this diminutive pie wherein the natural muskiness of the grapes is tamped down by copious amounts of butter and whipped cream. (carrborofarmersmarket.com; 919-280-3326)

Pecan Pie
Brigtsen’s
New Orleans, Louisiana
Crust that’s as tender (and brittle) as homemade phyllo. Caramel sauce that’s as rich as a levee board politician on the take. Pecan nougat that shakes and shimmies like an Iberville Street hooker. And house-churned vanilla ice cream that glorifies the marriage of cow and cane. (brigtsens.com; 504-861-7610)

Pecan Waffle
Waffle House
Avondale Estates, Georgia
Waffle Houses are interstate-off-ramp ubiquitous. But they somehow overcome their chain status. Pecan waffles help. Fresh from the iron, they deserve better than the sorry corn syrup Waffle House pours, which is why my son and I bootleg in little bottles of true cane or maple. (wafflehouse.com; 404-294-8758)

Pink Velvet Salad
Crystal Grill
Greenwood, Mississippi
A jiggly mix of pineapple chunks, redder-than-red cherries, and pecans, bound by condensed milk and a bit of aspic, capped with Cool Whip, America’s favorite nondairy topping. No wonder some call it nervous pudding. (662-453-6530)

Strawberry Cake
Westside Bar-B-Que
New Albany, Mississippi
A pit, around back, belches smoke. But it’s the layer cakes that matter. Red velvet is lurid. Caramel is glossy. But strawberry, pale pink and pocked with bits of berry, transcends. (662-534-7276)