“The way that the things were cooked was perhaps the main splendor. For instance – the cornbread, the hot biscuits and the fried chicken; these things have never been properly cooked in the North. In fact, no one there is able to learn the art, so far as my experience goes. Perhaps no bread in the world is quite as good as Southern cornbread. And perhaps no bread in the world is quite so bad as the Northern imitation of it.”
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Classic cornbread – Without all the friggin’ sugar added! Yum!
Never did understand the whole “sugar” bit…. you don’t need that much when making cornbread.
And it’s true….Northerners just don’t get it.
Need a cast-iron dutch oven to do it right.
Now, spoon bread…that’s an art. My aunt’s recipe, which was really my mother’s, I’ll have to recover. Hadn’t thought of it in years.
As a Northerner, I’ll give the South cornbread, fried chicken, BBQ, sausage gravy and grits.
That is all.
The South does not know how to do any grease not sausage grease.
The Northeast does good grease.
I can’t get a good sub, a good pizza, any good Italian food, good brown gravy over fries and I have to go north at least 4 hours from the DC area to find a freaking diner that isn’t so clean it’s tasteless. Down here I actually eat at Denny’s! And I’m grateful for it.
You can do a lot worse than A Moons Over My Hammy at 2am!
And Denny’s wee-hour Goth-Toe simply can’t be beat! 😉
Dude. DC area ain’t The South. Anything that you’re eating anywhere less than a day’s drive south of DC ain’t Southern cooking either. Getting decent brown gravy anywhere does seem to be a problem though. I make my Mom’s recipe with bacon grease, flour, beef broth and water and it’s mind-blowingly good.
Have to go with Mitch here. DC ain’t the South. Not even remotely.
Oh, and sidenote: we are getting rather good at the Northern foods, by virtue of the transplants that are fleeing!! 😉
I know DC ain’t the South, but it’s not the Northeast either.
There are a couple good BBQ joints around though, but the really good food around here is from the various middle eastern and third world countries.
There are probably 5 great kabob places, Afghan (both Kabul and Kandahar style) and Pakistani. There’s good Ethiopian, good Eritrean (surprisingly, right across the street), a few really good Lebanese joints. The one by my office only hires smoking hot eastern European girls as waitresses. It’s like a marriage site with labneh and kibbeh!
But I despair at getting a good “two eggs any style” or “cheeseburger deluxe” with fries and (brown) gravy, at 2am around here.
I know DC ain’t the South, but it’s not the Northeast either. True. Neither fish nor fowl in that respect.
The Holy Trinity of ingredients:
Bacon grease, flour, beef broth.
Rumor has it that these items were left over after the Sixth Day, and when God rested on the Seventh, he snuggled them to his bosom happily.
It’s also a little-known fact that Thomas Edison’s real first light bulb was manufactured with those very ingredients, and lit up so brightly that he was temporarily blinded. He later replaced the light element with a filament, lest folks think the sun had exploded.
Pingback: Good Gravy « The Center of the Anomaly
Mitchell – if you come out to visit, I will make you some gravy to go over Cruel Wife’s biscuits. I will be uncharacteristically prideful (hush, Aggie) and say that your life will never be the same. I will pit my gravy against any and all comers. Cruel Wife makes damn fine biscuits, too.
It involves bacon, sausage, mushrooms, butter, bacon grease, whole milk, and cream. Plus flour of course.
(Of course that offer of B&G applies to anyone who visits.)
Whaaaaat…??
I wasn’t going to say anything… 😉
Cream based gravies can be good too – Mom occasionally makes a cream version of the one I posted for other dishes. This spring I’m going to try and schedule a visit with my sister in Indiana and you’re just a train hop away from her LK so I’ll definitely hit you up on that offer if it happens!
And here’s a Brit who agrees. No sugar, no wheat flour, and bacon grease ALL the way, in a red-hot iron skillet.
Love your name 🙂
And damn skippy on the ingredients!!
Making me hungry, this talk is.
Making you sound like Yoda, this talk is. 😉