Food & Drink

Mail-Order Southern Holiday Food

Shortcuts aren’t necessarily a bad thing during the holidays

Photo: Courtesy of Callie's Biscuits


Between the shopping and the socializing, the cooking and the cleaning, shortcuts aren’t necessarily a bad thing during the holidays, especially if it means trading time in the kitchen for visiting with friends and family. Sure, there are some things you’ll want to do by hand yourself—like whipping up a batch of grandma’s milk punch—but these Southern-made mail-order snacks, sweets, and breakfast sundries are worth outsourcing this season.

Order NOW to have in time for Christmas.


BREAKFAST

Callie’s Biscuits
Charleston, SC
You can order these flaky Charleston-made biscuits in packages of two-dozen—they come in country ham, cheese and chive, buttermilk, and cinnamon sugar—but streamline Christmas breakfast this year, and snag a Hog Heaven Box, which comes with two types of biscuits (two-dozen per box) and a pound of South Carolina-made country sausage links and a slab of Edward’s bacon from Virginia.—calliesbiscuits.com

Goodnight Brothers Country Ham
Boone, NC
This family-run outfit in North Carolina’s High Country has been curing country ham the old-fashioned way—slowly and from local pasture-raised pigs—for more than sixty years. Order a ham whole or sliced thin, but do it ASAP if you want it here by Christmas. Missed the deadline? You can also find Goodnight Brothers in most Southern Whole Foods, Earth Fares, and Piggly Wigglys.—goodnightbrothers.com

Sweetgrass Granola
Crab Orchard, KY
Jacob and Carolyn Gahn use Kentucky-sourced sorghum and honey to sweeten all five flavors of their 100%-natural granola, which is made by hand on their first-generation farm. Serve with yogurt and fruit for a light start to the day, leaving plenty of room for Christmas dinner.—sweetgrassgranola.com


SNACKS

Caja Popcorn
Atlanta, GA
Chef Todd Ginsberg’s artisan popcorn is way too delicious to use for trimming the tree. Made fresh daily, the popcorn comes in six varieties—including Chocolaty Peppermint for the holidays—but you can’t miss with a classic combination of caramel and cheddar.—cajapopcorn.com

Home.Made’s Pepper Jelly Candied Pecans
Athens, GA
Athens caterer Mimi Maumus combines separate family recipes for pepper jelly and candied pecans for a new take on an old Southern favorite. She makes a mean cheese straw, too. Expect both to go fast.—homemadeathens.com

Roots and Branches
Asheville, NC
A Saturday farmer’s market experiment turned serious business; Roots and Branches crackers are the perfect mates to a holiday cheese plate. They come in five flavors, but we’re especially partial to the rosemary and olive paired with a soft goat cheese and a smear of fig preserves.—rootsandbranchesavl.com


SWEETS

Caroline’s Cakes
Spartanburg, SC/Annapolis, MD
A slice of this seven-layer yellow cake topped with rich caramel icing tastes so good even your grandmother might think she made it. The decadent cake can be frozen and refrozen for up to six months—in the unlikely event there are leftovers.—carolinescakes.com

Fox Point Farm Caramels
Rockford, AL
These salted vanilla goat milk caramels are made by hand on a forty-acre farm near Lake Martin, Alabama. Sold by the dozen, they make great stocking stuffers for anyone with a sweet tooth in your family.—fox-point-farm.myshopify.com

G Mommas Cookies
Selma, AL
Baked using his grandmother’s recipes, Robert Armstrong’s crisp, chocolate chip pecan cookies—they also come in butterscotch oatmeal—are as addictive as potato chips. So don’t count on having any of these bite-sized sweets left for Santa.—gmommas.com


Elizabeth Hutchison Hicklin is a Garden & Gun contributing editor and a full-time freelance writer covering hospitality and travel, arts and culture, and design. An obsessive reader and a wannabe baker, she recently left Nashville to return home to Charleston, South Carolina, where she lives with her husband, their twins, and an irrepressible golden retriever.


tags: