You no longer have to live down the road or travel to get your hands on great Southern foods. Now the artisanal flavors from Dixie can travel to you.
Here are four of our favorite mail-order Southern delicacies:
Cheese Straws; Winston Salem, North Carolina
We dont want to start a ruckus, but these cheese straws from Salem Kitchen (based on a seventy-five-year-old recipe) are the best we’ve ever tasted—lightly salted with a sharp kick.
Salem Kitchen
$16 a pound
800-481-1923; salemkitchen.com
Antebellum Coarse Grits; Columbia, South Carolina
Glenn Roberts had no doubt that grits were at the foundation of Lowcountry regional cooking. All he needed was the heirloom corn. After much work and research, Roberts located Carolina Gourdseed White corn (dating back to the late 1600s) and now sells his Anson Mills grits to some of the most famous chefs in America—and also to you.
Anson Mills Grits
$4.95 for 12 ounces
803-467-4122; ansonmills.com
Surryano Ham; Surry, Virginia
Spain may have its famous Serrano ham, but the South now has Surryano, from Surry Farms, a locally made version that’s every bit the equal of its silky dry-cured European counterpart. With three generations of country ham tradition behind him, curemaster Sam Edwards III uses 100 percent pasture-raised Heritage Berkshire hogs, each fed two pounds of Virginia peanuts per day to create more thorough marbling. After the hams are cured and smoked, he then extends the aging time (400 days) for a rich, concentrated flavor.
Surry Farms
Prices vary
888-901-4267; surryfarms.com
Double-Chocolate Moonshine Cake; Warrenton, Virginia
Leave it to a Southern baker in moonshine country to create a dessert that rivals the Kentucky bourbon ball. The double chocolate moonshine cake from Red Truck Bakery is made using (legal) hooch (from the nearby Copper Fox Distillery) and enough rich chocolate to give you what can only be termed a food buzz.
Red Truck Bakery
$22
540-347-2224; redtruckbakery.com
