All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter,
Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost
-Tolkien
Southern Food
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Southern Food Is From The Heart
It will come to no surprise that Southerners have a true love affair with their local cuisine. It does not just represent meals and sustenance, but also the final product of sharing pieces of our souls with one another. Most everyone raised in the south will be able to give dreamy accounts of occasion after occasion of special moments tied to family and community dinners adorned with southern food. Our culinary creations of southern food are extensions of our personalities, family traditions, and ties to our land, friends, and families.
Blending Of Cultures Created Southern Food
One of the most amazing elements to southern food is how its humble beginnings lie with simple people who had access to simple ingredients. Just like any other development of a regional culinary style, southern food was born out of the most available ingredients to that region. The blending of plants and farming techniques brought over with African slaves with the French influence originating in the Louisiana delta allow southern food to be a splendid mixture of races, cultures, and ingredients to culminate into a food style that is nothing short of magical. The dishes we are most famous for are based upon the items we had at hand during the forging of this great nation. For instance, most southerners would suffer from withdrawals if they were required to go more than a few days without our staples of sweet tea, grits, collards, or ribs. Although many of these came to us from the far corners of the Earth, we possess a unique talent in the south of taking something that starts out as foreign to us and adapting to allow it to become a very essential part of our cultural fabric.
Southern food has been attacked by many because it can be judged as unhealthy or too rich, but just as with most everything in life, moderation goes along way keeping something good from evolving into something bad. From our local seafood to our wild hogs, we truly have a unique legacy in our southern food.