Today’s prompt from Long and Short Reviews is, “Food from Our Region We Love”. One potential issue with this: I’ve only been out of the Southland a few times in my life, both times to the Southwest. I’m not entirely sure where “food” ends and “Southern Food” begins. I will, however, try to name a few likely prospects. But first, WWW Wednesday!
WHAT have you finished reading recently? The True Flag, Stephen Kinzer. On the birth of American imperialism and anti-imperialism. Mailman by Steve Grant, a memoir of working as a rural mail carrier in 2020-2021 Appalachia.
WHAT are you reading now? Oh, bother. I started listening to Heroes by Stephen Fry; I’m still trudging along in The Great Crusade, Eisenhower’s WW2 memoir; I’ve started reading a novel about Aeneas and am looking at a book about the discovery of Troy and a book about the Minor Prophets to go along with my Bible in a Year project, and, and, and —
WHAT are you reading next?
I…I have no idea. I mean, LBJ and Truman are glowering at me from a corner because Homer has pulled me into Greece for a week or so, I need to get cracking on the science survey, and I have a great idea for this year’s Blast from the Past. Oh, and I just received Greek Ways: How the Greeks Created Western Civilization in the post. That work has been on my Amazon wishlist since I opened an Amazon account in 2005, but my Greek mood has led to it finally being purchased.
So, uh, southern food
(1) Fried Green Tomatoes. The appearance of green tomatoes in the grocery store means it’s summer, and there’s nothing like fresh FGT’s right out of the skillet. Personally, I slice `em up, dip them in milk or egg, batter them in cornmeal, and then load them with a ridiculous amount of salt and pepper.
(2) Greens. Turnip greens or collard greens, mostly. I didn’t realize these were a regional thing until a friend of mine visiting from the Southwest said he’d never heard of them.
(3) Corn bread, maybe? Surely other people cook cornmeal into bread?
(4) Hush puppies, relatedly. I can’t imagine eating sea food without these little balls of fried corn meal.
(5) Fried okra. I eat this even though I know it’s not good for me. (On any level, besides ‘mm, comfort food’.) Why do southerners eat so much fried food? It’s hot and miserable down here, you’d think we’d be experts in things that don’t require cooking. We should be cold salad experts, not deep-fried aficianados! I also like my okra pickled, especially pickled spicy.
(6) Boiled peanuts. Okay, I’ll admit to cheating now: I search for “foods only in the South”. Surely the rest of you aren’t going around at state fairs without your boiled peanuts? I mean, what do you even carry in your hand if you don’t have that paper sack of peanuts, preferably seasoned ‘cajun’ style.
(7) Biscuits and sausage gravy. The ultimate in breakfast comfort food. Sausage gravy is thick and white. Basically, you fry up an entire thingy of sausage (that’s a technical term for a pound of sausage in a thin plastic wrapper) in small bits, then start adding milk and flour until it’s nice and creamy.
(8) Real grits. Not Quaker instant, that stuff relates to grits as much as frozen fish sticks related to fried catfish. Real grits are cooked slow, with milk and butter, and they’re so creamy and good you’d think this was what the Hebrews were on about with manna. One of my Christmas traditions is to eat grits and tomato gravy for brunch with my godparents (after breakfast with my parents — oofah). Tomato gravy is its own thing, requiring a healthy diet of bacon just to give you the drippings to get started. Southern food means we don’t live as long as everyone else, but by god we enjoy it more.
(9) Pecan pie. Pronounced pu’cahn pie, spare me your pee cans. I always look for this at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
(10) Chicken ‘n’ dumplins’. Another classic that I associate strongly with Thanksgiving. My grandmother used to make them.
Reading Freely 
Look at all that lovely food! Your list definitely beats mine. Mine looks less like an explosion of flavour and more like the place flavour goes to die. 🫠🤣
Physicians probably approve of yours more than mine, though! BTW, for some reason WP is not letting me comment on your blog…I don’t know if they’re being routed to spam or not, but every time I try to comment it asks me to log in, and when I do it just happens again! -_-
Sausage gravy is good stuff.
Never was a fan of peecan pie though 😉
I love biscuits and sausage gravy.
I love boiled peanuts, alas not available in Illinois, not even south Illinois.
The best were the huge batches prepared by a cousin in Georgia.
Stephen has such a wonderful voice for audio narration.
#WWWWednesday Last #book I finished: The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth, by #ZoëSchlanger #Amreading: Stories of First Contact: Humanity’s Encounters with Alien Intelligence, by #SinišaKomlen
#Amlistening to: Sur les chemins du doute, by #VictoireSentenac
#TBR Reading next: Les Doigts rouges, by #KeigoHigashino
Did you like Like Eaters? It was a favorite for me in the year I read it.
The Light Eaters was absolutely fabulous. It will definitely be my favorite nonfiction of the year. I need to write a review
I’m hungry and btw we grew up eating boiled peanuts in Hawaii too.
This post sent me to my local meat and three for lunch. I only wound up eating the meat and one, with two vegetables left over for lunch tomorrow!
Are the green tomatoes unripe red ones, or one of the green varieties? I’ve never chosen to grow a green variety as I’m not sure how I would know when it is ripe
They’re unripe red ones! They’re still very firm when cooked.
We have a lot of similar foods on our list today….but one of yours will be on my post for next week… lol….. <a href=”https://jhthomas.blogspot.com/2026/08/wednesday-weekly-blogging-challenge.html“>https://jhthomas.blogspot.com/2026/08/wednesday-weekly-blogging-challenge.html</a>
I don’t think I’ve ever had Fried Green Tomatoes but I love tomatoes in all their forms and now I really want to try them, that picture is making my mouth water lol. I like corn bread too but I’ve only ever had it when we went on road trips to the US as a kid and stopped at Cracker Barrel 😂. Boiled peanuts? I think all the peanuts I’ve had are roasted. 🤔 or made into peanut butter. & I love pecan pie or at least I think I do, I’ve only had the butter pecan pie…is that the same thing? Now I want one.
I’ve never heard of BUTTER pecan pie. That might be interesting.
If you find yourself down here during the summer FGT’s are worth seeking out. I stress –in the summer — because that’s when they’re fresh!
Without the greens, how would our bodies ever move all the traditional saturated fat along? I used to feel embarrassed and disgusted by real oldfashioned southern cooking, but like some of the newer, lighter versions. Leave that wad of saltpork and its grease out, just cook the greens until they soften, and goodness gracious they are good.
I think the secret to surviving oldfashioned southern cooking was all that exercise oldfashioned farmers used to get. In my town you can still see a few of the real oldtimers, slim and spry, moving “better” than their children’s generation, too many of whom are fat and lazy.
Pris cilla King