I am not qualified to say which dishes are “Southern” and just picked recipes from the book. I did not include barbecue, slaw, biscuits, ham, red eye gravy, potato pancakes, catfish, po’ boys, mud pie, grits or more well known items.
Americans define “the South” in surprisingly different ways occasionally including Texas or Florida and one presumes they were generous in including Texan fare. And more so in including Czech (cream cheese-lemon-ricotta filled “Lone Star” kolaches in the magazine) and Tex-Mex.
Part of the reason for the thread is a number of recipes are portrayed as being popular in a few very small towns only (El Reno?). “Oklahoma Fried Onion Burgers” are patties made frugally with one side beef and the other unmixed, distinct, sane-sized half with thin salted onion slices, fried in butter on both sides.
I just read through the wiki article on kolaches. I had no idea there was another type. Then again, I was also under the mistaken impression that they were of German rather than Czech origin.
Those I’ve seen around a bit over the last few years. I know there’s a few places in the Chicago area that serve Oklahoma Onion burgers, as I’ve seen posts on Facebook about them. I first learned of them maybe 5-7 years ago watching some Youtube videos, but they’ve picked up a little in popularity, though the vast majority of people would not know what they are outside Oklahoma.
Even moreso, Nashville hot chicken has pretty much because nationally popular as of a few years ago, and is continuing to spread. I discovered Nashville hot chicken about seven or eight years ago when I went on a trip to Nashville and was researching local foods. I learned of Prince’s and some other places, checked them out, and fell in love with them. At that time, nobody I knew had ever heard of the stuff. I hadn’t, for sure. Then about a year or two later, it started creeping into the national market via KFC’s lame attempt at a Nashville hot chicken sandwich, and a year or two after that, it just exploded. There’s a number of Nashville hot chicken places here in Chicago now, and a few more that include a version of the sandwich on the menu. (The versions I tried in Nashville were not sandwiches, though. They were fried chicken with the cayenne-lard/oil brushed over it.) And it was the first truly hot American food I had eaten. If you get an extra hot at Prince’s, be prepared. It’s not toned down for middle American palates.
I grew up in the Chicago area, but have lived in North Carolina for a couple of decades now.
Despite living in the Carolinas, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this before.
Never heard of them.
I’ve heard of these, but don’t know what they are, and I don’t think I’ve ever had them.
Never heard of them.
This one, I know. It’s everywhere around here. If there’s a dish with cheese, there’s a pretty good chance someone will offer a version with pimento cheese.
Ah, that’s what “Carolina Bog” is? I don’t think I’ve ever heard it called that, but I’ve definitely had it. But I’ve also had that back in the Midwest. Is there something about the “Carolina Bog” version that makes it distinctive or distinctively Southern?
Carne Guisada isn’t even a Texan dish; it’s a Mexican and Tex-Mex dish that supposedly originated in Puerto Rico, and migrated to Mexico, and from there to Texas. In effect, it’s Mexican style beef stew.
Kolaches and klobasniks are traditional Czech baked goods- kolaches are similar to danishes, and usually have sweet/fruit fillings, while klobasniks are the same dough, just wrapping some sort of sausage- either a link, or loose sausage filling. (klobasa = sausage in Czech). A lot of the time they’re called “kolaches” or “sausage kolaches” anyway. They’re pretty common in Texas, especially in Central/SE Texas.
Pimento cheese is a dip/spread that consists at its core of shredded cheddar cheese, mayonnaise and jarred pimentos. Some people add other stuff like garlic, etc… but it’s not required.
No idea about the other stuff; seems like I’ve heard of a Natchitoches Meat Pie before, but never actually had one, but the rest are entirely new to me.
I found the versions of Nashville chicken available here in Canada extremely mild. Obviously not the real thing. I only eat fried chicken once in a while and prefer Valentina extra hot on the side.
Hmmm … I’ve not seen “dippable” pimento cheese, but your description reminds me a lot of Rotel dip. I don’t think Rotel dip is necessarily pan-Southern or anything, but a lot of people in SE Louisiana make it for parties.
Yeah, the extra hot version I had at Prince’s and Bolton’s in Nashville were melt-your-face-off hot. There is at least one place here in the Chicago area (Fry the Coop) whose extra hot is as spicy. Valentina Black is my table hot sauce of choice, and that isn’t anywhere near the same league as these hot chicken sandwiches. Like not even close. On my spiciness scale, Valentina Black (extra hot) is about a 3. El Yucateco hot sauce (the regular red or green) is about a 7. Prince’s extra hot was a 9, pushing 10. And, yes, I know El Yucateco has habaneros, and cayenne isn’t anywhere near as hot, but when you have so much of it (apparently–I don’t think they add anything hotter), it gets to habanenro+ levels. I’ve made Nashville chicken at home, and when you add that much cayenne pepper to it, while habaneros may be much higher Scoville, the quantity surpasses it, as you wouldn’t add tablespoons of habanero powder to a sauce.
Comeback sauce, yes; pimento cheese, definitely yes (it’s ubiquitous here in Mississippi). I’ve never had or been offered any of the others, although some of the names sound familiar. I think a lot of them might be specific to a particular place or region rather than generically Southern.
Yeah, none of this is quite as widespread/well known as say St. Louis style BBQ or New Orleans style gumbo. Or more generic southern U.S. cuisine like grits, chicken & waffles…
Is “comeback sauce” the same thing as “comeback dressing”, which I believe has a ketchup-&-mayo base? We lived in suburban Jackson, MS ~20 years ago, and comeback dressing was offered in many restaurants – and not just on salads.
The popular Cane’s Chicken Fingers chain (definitely in LA and MS, unsure about elsewhere) … I believe their dipping sauce is a variation on comeback dressing.
When I was living in Czechoslovakia, I found the kolaches there to be very different from the ones I’d had in the US. Much less fruit, and they were more like bread than a flaky pastry.
My mother (who was from MIssouri) used to buy supermarket pimento cheese in Minnesota back in the '60s, but I don’t recall ever seeing it since then.