The cuisine of the Southern United States is defined as the historical regional culinary form of states generally south of the Mason Dixon Line dividing Pennsylvania from Maryland and Delaware as well as along the Ohio River, and extending west to southern Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.
The most notable influences come from English, Scottish, Irish, German, French, Native American, and African American cuisines. Tidewater, Appalachian, Cajun, Creole, Lowcountry, and Floribbean are examples of types Southern cuisine. In recent history, elements of Southern cuisine have spread north, having an effect on the development of other types of American cuisine.
Many items such as squash, tomatoes, corn (and its derivatives, including grits), as well as the practice of deep pit barbecuing were inherited from the southeastern American Indian tribes such as the Caddo, Choctaw, and Seminole. Many foods associated with sugar, flour, milk, eggs (many kinds of baking or dairy products such as breads and cheeses) are more associated with Europe.
The South's propensity for a full breakfast (as opposed to a Continental one with a simple bread item and drink) is derived from the English fry up, although it was altered substantially. Much of Cajun or Creole cuisine is based on France, and on Spain to a lesser extent. Floribbean is more Spanish-based with obvious Caribbean influences, while Tex-Mex has considerable Mexican and Native American influences.
Read more about Cuisine Of The Southern United States: Traditional Southern Dishes, Southern Cuisine For The Masses, Southern Cuisine By Region
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“Thank God for the passing of the discomforts and vile cuisine of the age of chivalry!”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“America—rather, the United States—seems to me to be the Jew among the nations. It is resourceful, adaptable, maligned, envied, feared, imposed upon. It is warm-hearted, overfriendly; quick-witted, lavish, colorful; given to extravagant speech and gestures; its people are travelers and wanderers by nature, moving, shifting, restless; swarming in Fords, in ocean liners; craving entertainment; volatile. The schnuckle among the nations of the world.”
—Edna Ferber (1887–1968)
“Thank God for the passing of the discomforts and vile cuisine of the age of chivalry!”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Thank God for the passing of the discomforts and vile cuisine of the age of chivalry!”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaf and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin’ in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin’ in the poplar trees.”
—Billie Holiday [Eleanor Fagan] (1915–1959)
“You may consider me presumptuous, gentlemen, but I claim to be a citizen of the United States, with all the qualifications of a voter. I can read the Constitution, I am possessed of two hundred and fifty dollars, and the last time I looked in the old family Bible I found I was over twenty-one years of age.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1816–1902)
“Colonel [John Charles] Fremont. Not a good picture, but will do to indicate my politics this year. For free States and against new slave States.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)