Southern American Food

Pimento Cheese sandwiches are the unofficial official snack at The Master’s. When they have changed cheese-makers it has been controversial.

Took me a sec and a Google, but “gores era fish” = “horseradish” for others confused.

I despise the autocorrection feature. In English it makes my spelling worse. Other tongues? Forget about it.

I made the Oklahoma onion burger recipe just now. Very sloppy, but extremely juicy and tasty.

I certainly do! Unfortunately it’s so out of the way that I’ve only been able to stop there a handful of times…

Thanks for the link, by the way. It says they do mail order…I’d have to think about whether that would be good, but I’d consider trying it. ETA: never mind, the shipping costs are understandably exorbitant

I don’t know if it would be any better but on the other side of I-35, also does kolaches etc.:

As does Sykora Bakery, in the Czech Village, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. If you are ever near there, well worth the detour off of I 80 for the kolaches and bread. A significant portion of my youth was wasted there, eating as many kolaches as my paltry paper route earnings allowed.

https://touchofclassphoto.wixsite.com/sykora

For many years of travel up and down I-35 (San Antonio/Austin to Dallas & vice versa), I knew Czech Stop as a place to stop since you needed gas anyway and pick up some kolache goodness for folks on the other end the journey. It’s not that easy to get into off the highway (cramped parking lot) but well worth the effort.

Slovacek’s though, I’d make the drive to West just to get there. Dozens of different varieties of different kolaches/klobasniks, as well as many other pastries and baked goods. And it’s got full TX BBQ options and a nice little cafe. Not to mention clean restrooms and a dog park if your 4-legged friend has been cooped up a few hours. If you’re traveling I-35 through CenTex, it’s the place to stop.

Failing Slovacek’s, of course there’s always Buccee’s.

Chicken bog is regional within South Carolina. I grew up eating it. When I moved about 100 miles away into NC, I never met anyone who even knew what it was. It is usually a side dish with barbecue. If you are in the Pee Dee area of SC it is quite common. Make sure you get a hen to cook (not a fryer). You need the extra fat. Usually it includes smoked sausage.

I like Czech Stop a bit better, though that dog park is useful and access is easier at Slovacek. I guess the only thing to do is to get a large sample from both places and conduct some careful comparisons. Where’s the drooling face? :drooling_face:

Yeah culinarily speaking, Texas has a sort of idiosyncratic cuisine that’s basically a sort of natural fusion of all the various cultural influences present in the state.

So you’ve got a big dose of Mexican influence, a big dose of Southern US influence, a big dose of Central European (German/Czech mostly), a big dose of Vietnamese immigrant cuisine, especially in the greater Houston area, and a good dose of southern Louisiana cooking in the SE part of the state.

In practical terms, it means that there are some dishes that are similar, but derive from different traditions- barbecue for example. Texas barbecue evolved from Central Texas German meat markets that would smoke leftover or less desirable beef as a preservation method like they did in the old country, and they’d sell it to laborers, etc… This is different than the pork barbecue in the rest of the South, and subtly different than Kansas City barbecue.

Others are straight up syncretic combinations- there are a whole host of klobasniks/kolaches filled with a bunch of meats/sausages- boudin, brisket, etc… that weren’t originally Czech, but are common in Texas. Same thing with Vietnamese crawfish, which are basically the fusion of Louisiana crawfish boils and Texas Vietnamese flavors. Or smoked brisket tamales/tacos/enchiladas- same deal; Tex-Mex with barbecue inside. Or mundane stuff like serving pickled jalapenos with barbecue.

But people still eat a lot of “Southern” food like greens, cornbread, grits, etc… but AFAIK, mostly just the common heavy hitter dishes, not funky regional speciaties like whatever Shrimp Perloo is.

I don’t doubt that Cooks Illustrated just lumped Texas into the South for their purposes, but in fact the state really is where the South, West and Mexico meet, at least culturally and culinarily.