Southern Comfort

I love the South. From what I have seen and read about it, I am so intrigued by it. Its history, its culture and of course the Southern accent. I don’t know but there is something appealing about and of course how can we over look the Southern hospitality. I sometimes wonder what it is about the South that such a draw – maybe its from reading Gone With the Wind heehee..

Anyways with the South comes its great Southern cuisine. I remembered having my first test of Hardees biscuit back in the day – the restaurant has since closed. I can still remember the taste and the texture and with the age of the internet where you can get all sorts of recipes from anywhere at your fingers tips I scouted for the recipe and found one which I tried – talk about reliving the good old days. I tried my hand at South Georgia Biscuits and I sure enjoyed them I am obviously looking for more biscuits recipes to try. There is the fried green tomatoes – the dish not the book, southern fried chicken and I think its through Southern cooking that I learnt about buttermilk . I love that stuff great in chocolate cake – makes the cake soft & moist… *drools* …

While I was at the baking supply store I saw some beautiful pecan nuts, and thought about making pecan pie, when I looked at the recipe and the amount of sugar used I kind of got scared heehee.. For me when I look at a recipe, and read the ingredients used for some reason its like I can almost taste it. I know I am probably just weird that way but anyways, I might try the recipe when I have family or friends over because I know people who rave can appreciate it.

Another Southern recipe that i tried was Red Velvet Cake. I did it for Mother's Day last year and my late grandmother enjoyed it. She even tried to feed me some so sweet isnt it. Red Velvet cake is basically chocolate cake with red coloring - hah i just ruined the suprise, its usually made on Valentines day.

This blog is not so much about my experience with Southern cooking but more about what southern food is all about. I have posted this write up from my favorite cooking site allrecipes.com and listed links to some recipes that’s worth trying. Hope you guys get some info and will try them.

Southern Comfort

By: Kelly Brant

If comfort food is your pleasure, you can't get any more soothing than good ole Southern cookin'

A Cuisine of Many Cultures

Southern food has a history as rich as the gravy that tops the flaky buttermilk biscuits on Southern breakfast tables. The cuisine may have the reputation of being calorie-, fat- and sugar-laden, but the food of the Deep South is a combination of culinary heritages from around the world.

European, African and Native American influences make up the flavors and cooking methods of southern food.

The Native American influence is evident in the wide use of corn--from corn bread and grits to corn fritters and oven-fried corn--that has always been a staple on the Southern table.

Notable African contributions include okra and black-eyed peas, while the popularity of deep-fried foods can be credited to both African and Scottish influences.

What is Southern Cooking?

Southern food is home cooking, comfort food, Creole, Cajun, Carolina low-country, soul food and Tex-Mex. It includes an abundance of fresh vegetables, rice or corn, inexpensive cuts of meat (usually pork or chicken) and fresh seafood.

Popular Southern dishes include barbeque, chicken-fried steak, catfish, smothered pork chops, black-eyed peas, grits, biscuits and gravy, fried green tomatoes, collard greens, okra and sweet potatoes. And no Southern meal is complete without libations, especially sweet iced tea and mint juleps.

Pecan Pie

Southern Fried Chicken

Living in High Cotton

Big country breakfasts of eggs, biscuits and gravy, sausage and grits, and supper plates of chicken-fried steak, corn bread and collard greens provided farmers with the fuel to work from sun up to sun down in the scorching heat and humidity of the South. But these meals were not just nourishing: they were also economical.

Thoughts of the pre-Civil War South may evoke images of sprawling plantations, but in reality most Southerners were subsistence farmers who relied upon their own harvests to feed their families. Many Southern dishes were created out of necessity and frugal ingenuity.

Redeye gravy, for example, is made with pan drippings and leftover coffee.

Key lime pie is another such dish. With very few cows in the Florida Keys, fresh milk was not readily available for pie baking. When sweetened condensed milk was introduced in 1856, it was natural to combine it with Key limes, creating the South Florida favorite.

What's for Supper?

Fresh fruit cobblers and pies are popular Southern desserts, the most famous of which include Florida's Key lime pie and Georgia's pecan pie. Pecans are a key ingredient in many Southern dishes, from New Orleans pralines (pronounced PRAH-leens) to Mississippi catfish. True Southerners will tell you authentic southern cooking is an art form passed down from generation to generation with little girls helping at the apron strings of their grandmothers, but anyone can enjoy a taste of the South with the right recipes.

Key Lime Pie Hush Puppies

Puttin' on the Grits

Whether you like them buttery or cheesy, grits are undeniably Southern. And nobody knows grits better than the folks in St. George, South Carolina--the per capita grits consumption capital of the world and home of the annual World Grits Festival.

I have often wondered what grits was so I Googled it and came back with this. The description of grist according to wikipedia is ..

Grits

Grits is a type of corn porridge, which is common in the Southern United States consisting of coarsely ground corn. This is similar to many other thick maize-based porridges from around the world such as polenta. It also has a lesser resemblance to farina, a thinner porridge.

Hominy grits is another term for grits, but explicitly refers to grits made from nixtamalized corn, or hominy.

Yellow speckled grits is also very popular[citation needed] in the southern states, named for its the black specks in its yellow body.

Traditionally the corn for grits is ground by a stone mill. The results are passed through screens, with the finer part being corn meal, and the coarser being grits.

Grits

Southern Style Biscuits

Fried Green Tomatoes

The food looks yummy don’t it. Anyways here are some recipes links if anyone’s keen on trying making southern food.

http://southernfood.about.com/library/recipes/blidx.htm

http://www.southernconnoisseur.com/recipes.html

http://www.foodieview.com/food/recipes/southern.jsp

Have fun learning & discovering …….