Southern Food – What is it?  Where is it Headed?

By JOHN WALDROP 
Special to Uptown Greenwood

What is 'Southern Food?' Should be an easy question huh?  If you think it’s fried chicken, black-eyed peas and cornbread, you don’t know squash - or beans either. Trying to define it can be a slippery slope.

There are many foods identified with the South. Other than barbeque however, there is no one food that is synonymous with the entire region.  Macaroni pie can’t be found everywhere. Even what we think of as a Southern Biscuit can’t be found everywhere. And you have to be flexible about what you call spoonbread.

Even with the barbeque, there are the sauces. If you created a map of the South covered with patches to indicate regions where different barbeque sauces are used – light tomato based, heavy tomato based, vinegar based and mustard based, it would resemble a painter’s pallet.

Tracing the influences of Southern Cuisine can also be a daunting task.  A map of migratory trends doesn't help much either. Lines spread out from South Carolina north, south and west.  Historians note that South Carolina in particular was settled by many different groups with different foodways. One of the most international cities of the English Colonies was Charleston.  At one point, forty percent of its population was French Huguenots. Not to mention the Jews from Spain fleeing persecution. There were so many Germans there that when two Lutheran churches were established, one rejected the other because they used too much English in their services. Then there were the slaves and many Europeans who came in through the Caribbean and brought with them foods like rice, yams, chilies and exotic spices.  Lowland Scots moved down from Pennsylvania as well, many of whom had lived for a time in Ireland. The results of this melting pot are specialties such as gumbos in Charleston, and pork/beef hash atop rice served with barbeque all over the state.

Where’s Southern Cuisine Headed?

The South is not a homogenous place where everyone eats grits, fried green tomatoes and chittlins, but rather a quilt-work of cultures with regions that demonstrate diverse foodway inspirations ranging from Native Americans to immigrants from all around the world.

Most Southerners might agree that the food traditions of the "Old South" are still around, but they will also make a point to tell you that they’re getting harder and harder to find.  A South where Mama makes biscuits from scratch and devotedly whips up a Sunday lunch with a couple of meats and an assortment of classic side dishes seems to be slipping away.  Today’s average, young, Southern Mother appears to have no more interest in home cooking than their mothers had in milking cows and churning butter.  However, for years we’ve been able to count on the “Meat and Three” restaurants to fill the need for our Southern comfort cuisine.  

Places like “Rick’s Uptown Café” in Greenwood, SC.  These restaurants are staples of every Southern community. They are usually a small, family-run restaurant that will serve you a meat and three vegetables at a modest cost.  But have you noticed that "Meat and Threes" are slowly disappearing from our neighborhoods?  With them, and a lost generation of home cooks, may go the last vestiges of traditional Southern Food?

In large cities like Atlanta, geographers see an influx of migrants and immigrants making a marked change on Southern Foodways and culture.  Not a complete change, but a mutation and blending of traditions. Overwhelming numbers are coming into cities large and small all over the South and altering Southern Food and its interpretation.

While some people think that these new interpretations of traditional Southern Food mark a loss, Pad McKeage, says change is only natural. Pad, serves up a little of everything in his fusion oriented Bistro.  Menu influences range from classic French & Italian cuisine to succulent southern barbeque at “Windows On Main” in the town of Abbeville.  I’ve had the pleasure of eating at Pad’s bistro many times.  It's part of the evolution of “Southern Food”, not the destruction, and I must say that I do enjoy these new southern dishes.  But, they were never meant to replace what Southern Mamas have always cooked from the heart?

 All Is Not Lost

If you’re not one that cares to march quietly into the future and are not at all interested in the new Southern Cuisine, then welcome to the Barbeque Nation.  Yes, authentic Southern Barbeque has evolved, but its DNA has not been altered.  It has survived, thrived and prevailed over the likes of McDonalds who have compressed, molded and dipped it into something that looks like barbeque but taste like rubber that’s been drowned in ketchup.

I don’t know the numbers, but I would guess that barbeque enthusiasts are quickly approaching the fan base numbers of NASCAR or the NFL. And they are not mutually exclusive.  As a member of the South Carolina Barbeque Association, I am in awe as I witness the rapid growth of barbeque and its tributaries.  So if you want some real authentic Southern Food, join your local barbeque association and they’ll lead you to the Promised Land.  And I’ll bet they can even hook you up with some good fried chicken and collards as well.

For more information on the SCBA, Barbeque Facts and History go to www.scbarbeque.com.