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By John. T. Edge | Nov 08 | Features
100 Southern Foods
From meats and sweets to seafood and sides–dig in to our interactive food map!
BREADS
Buttermilk Biscuits
Biscuitville
Greensboro, North Carolina
Most grab-and-go biscuits suck. Even Hardee’s, which jump-started the trend, now serves pitiful pucks. Not so Biscuitville, a family-owned enterprise with fifty locations in North Carolina and Virginia. Biscuitville is a fast-food chain. No apologies there. It fries and dumps hash brown planks, just like McDonald’s. But Biscuitville is also a living history exhibit. Chances are good that you’ll spy an apron-clad woman in the kitchen as you stand in line for your bacon- and egg-stuffed behemoth. She’ll look like someone’s grandmother. And she’ll be stirring together buttermilk, flour, and shortening. Cutting rounds of dough. And baking honest biscuits. (biscuitville.com)
Cathead Biscuit with Tabasco Bacon
Big Bad Breakfast
Oxford, Mississippi
The biscuit is oversize and the bacon is rude, in that saltier-than-a-drunken-sailor sort of way. Spicy, too, thanks to the Tabasco mash cure that John Currence rubs on his house-smoked bellies. (bigbadbreakfast.com; 662-236-2666)
Cheese Straws
McEntyre’s Bakery
Smyrna, Georgia
Raspy tongues of cheddar and cayenne, these evanescent rectangles are best bought by the box and best eaten with a colder-than-cold twelve-ounce bottle of cane sugar Coke, bootlegged in from Mexico. (mcentyresbakery.com; 770-434-3115)
Cornbread
Highlands Bar and Grill
Birmingham, Alabama
I’ve always eaten well at Highlands, Frank Stitt’s quarter-century-old showcase of French and Southern sensibilities. I recall fondly a “pork on pork” of shoulder and belly in bourbon sauce. But, recently, a skillet cornbread trumped all. When I checked his cookbook, I knew why: a half cup of bacon grease. (highlandsbarandgrill.com; 205-939-1400)
Corn Muffins
Martin’s
Montgomery, Alabama
Exteriors crisp as all get-out. Interiors that are downy and redolent of freshly ground corn and butter. As served at this one time George Wallace hang, they are paragons of the craft. (334-265-1767)
Cracklin’ Hoe Cake
Brooks Shaw’s Old Country Store
Jackson, Tennessee
The Old Country Store trades in Southern tchotchkes. Its take on flat cornbread, shot through with chewy hunks of rendered pork, is as honest as the day is long. (caseyjones.com; 731-668-1223)
Pigfat Cornbread
Skylight Inn
Ayden, North Carolina
A shingle of cornmeal, salt, and lard—the latter a by-product of hickory smoking whole hogs. Balanced atop a tray of hacked pork barbecue, that little ol’ hunk of bread steals the show. (252-746-4113)
Praise the Lard Biscuits
Beacon Light Tea Room
Bon Aqua, Tennessee
They stew down preserves every week, apple in the fall, blueberry in the summer. Preserves, however, are mere gilding for the biscuits. Silver dollar size and lard cut, they arrive, six to the order, in wicker baskets, begging to be ravished with butter. (931-670-3880)
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I know you can't include everything, but the fried chicken livers with local bibb and buttermilk dressing at the Glass Onion in Charleston, SC are the best of their kind! http://www.ilovetheglassonion.com/dailymenu
By Visitor | June 25, 2010 at 01:47 | report | Reply
Just wonderin': Did I miss the fried pickles on the list somewhere? They're pretty much a staple down here. My feelings are kind of hurt that you didn't travel down towards Nashville, Georgia (Tifton or Valdosta). :)
And besides, TRUE Southern comfort food can't be found in a restaurant because the main ingredients are love and family and friends.
By Cassie S. | February 12, 2010 at 03:27 | report | Reply
Here's the story on the Kool Corner owner's move from Atlanta to Birmingham:
http://blog.al.com/bob-carlton/2009/06/cuban_sandwich_shop_comes_to_v.ht...
Nice story. Hope he's wildly successful here in Birmingham.
By Visitor | July 10, 2009 at 12:47 | report | Reply
Sorry folks, but Kool Korner's been closed about a year now. Heard the owner moved to Birmingham, they'd be lucky to get his sandwiches.
By Visitor | May 27, 2009 at 03:13 | report | Reply
A big 10-4 on the Middendorf's fried catfish but you forgot their delicious jumbo sized fried soft shell crab. Best I have ever had without a doubt. A true treasure of a roadside seafood cafe.
By Bill | April 22, 2009 at 06:07 | report | Reply
George and Louies in Thomasville, Georgia. The best place to eat in the most charming city of all of the south. George and Louie's defines southern hospitality, with the owner, George's smiling face there to greet you everyday. Try a shrimp or oyster po boy or the grilled grouper greek salad. With the seafood fresh from the gulf, you cannot go wrong. Then there is always the Big Louie Special, a mouth watering hamburger served with fries and one of their famous greek salads. It is located a block from down town in the historical district. George and Louie's has been open over 25 years and and is famous all over the south. You must try it.
By Visitor | February 05, 2009 at 08:38 | Reply
I would have included steak from the Bourbon Mall in Bourbon, MS; fried chicken at Gus's in Memphis; the buffet at the Lorman Country Store in Jackson, MS; lunch at Mammy's Cupboard in Natchez, MS... others worth mentioning are Crystal Grill in Greenwood, MS and Two Sisters in Jackson, MS...
By Visitor | January 21, 2009 at 05:51 | Reply
The existence of Waffle House on this list cements my new found love of Garden and Gun. Thanks for realizing that the true soul of the South encompasses a world from the fine dining at Galatoires to the late night craving-fulfilling of Waffle House.
By Lindsey | January 13, 2009 at 02:12 | report | Reply
And now I'm totally perplexed... no Muffaleta from New Orleans on the entire list? No Central Grocery? No Nor-Joes?
http://offthebroiler.wordpress.com/2008/01/27/otb-classic-for-the-love-o...
And best oyster loaf BOZOS? NO WAY! Even Leah Chase will tell you the best one is at Casamento's.
http://offthebroiler.wordpress.com/2006/04/01/friday-night-at-casamentos...
and certainly, for pure oyster quality and freshness on a po-boy, Crabby Jack's has Bozos blown away.
http://offthebroiler.wordpress.com/2006/04/08/crabby-jacks/
And for crying out loud, Whole Hog-style barbecue is mentioned on the list and NO ED MITCHELL? WHAT THE HELL?
http://offthebroiler.wordpress.com/2008/09/06/the-finger-lickin-ginormou...
By Jason Perlow | January 06, 2009 at 03:32 | report | Reply
Any list of 100 Southern Foods you have to try before you die that does NOT include Drago's Charbroiled oysters from New Orleans/Metairie clearly is suspect. :)
http://offthebroiler.wordpress.com/2006/04/22/dragos/
By Jason Perlow | January 06, 2009 at 02:38 | report | Reply
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