Not enough for the pit…but I have to say I am EXTREMELY disappointed!
I lived in Albany (ALLLL BENNNYYY) Georgia for 2 years. While I wouldn’t want to live there permanently the main thing I enjoyed was the FOOD! Food I didn’t even like tasted great in the South. Locals told me that it was because everything was soaked in fat for 2 days…but hey! It tasted great.
There was one particular restaurant run by an old lady that had the best Ochre (spelling?) and BISCUITS AND GRAVY. Ohhh man…those biscuits and gravy were something else. I have spent years searching for something close…even went to a Southern cooking restaurant here in Minneapolis looking for it…nothing.
So…I recently got to go to NC on business. I had to spend all the meals with others and didn’t get a chance to get out looking for what I craved. The last day…with my flight leaving at 11:00 I had the morning off to find one.
I asked several people and got similar results…
“I lived in GA for 2 years and loved the cooking! I miss it so much especially biscuits and gravy. Do you know a place nearby with a good Southern breakfast?”
Now…I am not making this up…and it came from 3 different conversations in 3 different places.
I’m not kidding.
The first place mentioned was…
I kid you not…
McDonalds.
Freakin McDonalds.
Also mentioned was IHOP…SEVERAL TIMES. IHOP! I actually ended up eating there because of time and it is no different from the IHOP in MN.
Arby’s.
Perkins.
I can’t go on…
WHAT IN THE HELL HAS HAPPENED TO THE SOUTH! You people need to be bitch-slapped.
Seriously…is the casual Southern cooking restaurant dead?
Back in the 70s I was travelling with my family on a return trip from Kansas back to New York. Somewhere around Erie, we were getting desperately hungry. My dad got on the CB radio to see if anyone knew of any decent local restaurants. A trucker replied with two places, one of which was HoJo’s.
That should have been our first clue.
The place we ended up (Klara’s Kuntry Kitch’n?) served canned lima beans, corn, and little carrot cubes on a steam tray. I don’t remember the rest of the meal, but it was pretty much on par with that. Not exactly gor-met.
There are plenty of good Southern cooking places in Georgia.
'Round here we refer to these places as “meat-and-threes” since the menu or buffet line usually allows you one meat and a choice of three vegetables. Many also serve a fine breakfast.
As for chain restaurants, Cracker Barrel actually serves a pretty good approximation of a Southern country breakfast.
Jeanine’s in downtown Macon is just such a place and when I first went in I felt transported back to the 50’s. I was ‘Sugah’ and the food was inexpensive and awesome. Service was amazing.
Hell, I’ve got an hour for lunch, I think I’ll head down there right now!
Oh Jesus Christ I love those things. You know, the McDonalds in Mississippi would actually have those a few years ago. Then it went off the menu, but they still had them! It was like I knew a secret!
To be honest though, the type of places that serve otherwise great Southern food aren’t even open for breakfast. That’s your main problem. There will be a lot of lunch-type places for sure. Then you have your catfish places too. But it is true to some extent. The small Southern greasy spoon is kind of dying out. The ones that are left have been there for ages. But really most of the places I know like that are actually closed for breakfast. Good biscuits and gravy are something that you momma cooks!
I had a similar experience on my first trip into New England. I was in Mystic, Connecticut for a grad school seminar and we wanted to get some good local seafood. We asked the hotel clerk and she said that there was a Red Lobster up the road. Red Lobster? I’ve got that back at home. I want the local good stuff!
I don’t know about Asheville, but Charlotte is predominantly comprised of Yankees (can I say that word, being a Yankee myself?). You have to go 5 or so miles outside the metro city limits before it starts feeling like you’re in the South again. I know b/c I lived there for 4 years in middle school / early high school.
Asheville has typically more of a nouveau hippie cuisine, but there is a coffee shop on the east side with wicked sausage biscuits and gravy, although I can’t recall the name.
Yeah, there aren’t really a lot of great Southern breakfast places (although I hear the Biscuit House is good, locally.) One assumes that’s because you make your own at home. The Southern restaurants shine in the “meat and three” area, lunch and dinner.
