What is the history of Southern Food? Where does Southern Food originate from?

Question

SENOIR PROJECT ugh!

Answer 1

Cajun and Creole style of cooking.Creole were the well to aristocrates based on the classical European styles; French, Spanish, French Caribbean, African and American ."It also bears hallmarks of Italian cuisine." Creole the cooking style of Louisiana.

Cajun came from the Acadians is more provencial French , more rstic and peasantry style cooking.

A three pot affair or steamed rice, cornbread crawfish and sugar cane.

Cajun the style of New Orleans.

  Boiled crabs and crawfish.Alligator, frog lehs, turtle, rabbit.

Emeril Lagrasse is an example , Cajun style cooling and Paul Prudhomme.

All hot and spicey , tabasco sauce , made from from fermented cayenne pepers. And louisiana invention.

Like soy sauce a Chinese invention.

Answer 2

Regional cuisine develops as local food supplies blend with the varied cultural backgrounds of its cooks. The rural agricultural South produced vegetables, fruits, nuts, rice and corn. Game was plentiful: deer, rabbits, squirrels, birds and ducks of all kinds. Oysters, crabs, shrimp, saltwater and freshwater fish were easily procured. Native Americans, Spanish, English, African Americans and French contributed varied ways of preparing the foods they found here or brought from their homes.

Early European settlers starved until they listened to their Indian neighbors and learned to enjoy corn, squash, pumpkins, beans of every color, wild onions, blueberries and blackberries, native plums and cherries. Eventually lima beans, chocolate, white and sweet potatoes and peppers made their way to our area from Latin America. Corn, the fundamental gift of Native Americans was not always appreciated. Early Frenchwomen along the Gulf Coast rebelled when they were forced to use gritty meal for bread instead of their good white wheat from France. But they survived on corn made into ashcakes, hoecakes, and johnnycakes. Every one seemed to enjoy the Indian popping corn.

In the sixteenth century, another Southern food staple trotted into Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas behind Hernan de Soto's small army of explorers. The Spanish brought pigs along as a moving meat market. Some of these porkers ran away or were stolen by the Native Americans to become the ancestors of today's wild pigs. Baked ham, country ham and cornbread are still very "Southern".

The earliest European settlers were looking for quick wealth so agriculture in the South didn't take off until African farmers were brought here. African Americans brought seeds of collard greens, peas, okra (kumba), yams, watermelons and sesame (benne). They used the same farming techniques they had learned in Africa, creating a surplus of crops that became the basis for traditional Southern Hospitality.

The rural South of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries produced few cities outside of ports like Baltimore, Charleston, and New Orleans. Travel was difficult. Lonesome homesteads and plantations were far apart. Guests expected to visit for days if not weeks. Not only did they need to rest, but they brought news and entertainment to isolated families. Chickens and pork were served in every possible fashion. Salted, smoked country hams were boiled and baked and served with beaten biscuits. Greens and their potliquor were served with cornbread. Desserts featured ambrosia, trifles, sweet potato and pecan pies. Barbecues, and fish feasts drew distant neighbors together. At oyster roasts, oysters were steamed, fried, stewed, served in patties or just raw.

During the first half of the nineteenth century many of the richest citizens of the United States lived in the South. Based on slave labor and ever expanding land to the west king cotton reigned. When Southerners feasted they made a good job of it.  

Corn in all its forms filled Southern tables. Hominy was served as a breakfast porridge and leftovers fried for supper later that day. There could be cornpone, corndodgers, grits and the delicate spoonbread too soft to be eaten by hand. Did hushpuppies really get their namefrom hunters around a campfire throwing their fried corn to the dogs to keep them quiet?

From the 1860's to the 1930's the South was the economic red-headed-step-child of the United States. Its cooks learned to "make do" with the most common cheapest foods. Loving hands still created good home cooking. When it was available pork, chicken and game provided protein. Vegetable gardens produced greens and potatoes. Pork fat and flour made a rich gravy. Leftovers made good stews and gumbos. Stale bread became sweet dessert. When times became better in the South, most African Americans were left out. The old standbys became the ingredients of Soul Food. Soul Food is created and enjoyed with all senses. A good cook doesn't depend on measuring spoons or cups. She uses her instincts and her senses. She listens for the just right temperature of frying oil; looks for the perfect color of biscuits; feels for texture, and smells when the bread us just about ready; and tastes for seasoning. And when you eat, you want to use all your senses , too.



Creole and Cajun cooking developed in Southern Louisiana. Basically Creole cooking is city style and Cajun is rural. They both use many of the same locally grown ingredients. Creole refers to a native development from the French and Spanish colonial period. At one time anything grown locally was termed "creole", so you could buy creole eggs, creole cream cheese, creole beef, etc. Today the area's best tomatoes are creoles. Both styles have been influenced by Indians, French, African Americans and Spanish. Both styles use fresh local food but the preparation is different. Creole cooking is more elegant. Fish and rice and a sauce might be used but in Creole dishes the sauce would be more delicate and the ingredients served separately. In Cajun cooking it would be more likely to put all the ingredients in one pot and serve it as a one dish meal. Cajun cooking us known for its spiciness. If you're not born Cajun, taste first.

There is no one single type of cooking throughout the South. What is red beans and rice in Louisiana is more like to be peas and rice, or "hoppin john" in South Carolina while in Florida you find black beans and rice. In Virginia and Maryland crabs are steamed and then seasoned while along the Gulf Coast they are boiled in highly seasoned water. In Appalachia you find the freshest vegetables and "red-eye gravy" with your country ham. In North Carolina verbal warfare has been known to break out over the use of tomatoes in barbecue sauces. Home cooking has been the best of Southern food but today's restaurants are changing that picture. Corn, greens, pork and chicken are still Southern mainstays. At Christmas you find baked ham and turkey, sweet potatoes, rice, corn or oyster dressing and ambrosia and pecan pies anywhere in the South

Answer 3

1st feeing hungry

2nd going out of the house to find something edible

3rd finding veg and animals local to the area and easily to catch

4th experimenting with different methods and combinations and finding most suitable for taste, mentality, preserving qualities and so on....

the same applies to history of northern, eastern and western food.

Answer 4

Well, we in the south favour sausage beans and chips, while int he north the like sausage egg and chips. Why? I don't know.

Answer 5

Southern food came from a combo of things.  The American indians, The african and the european influences.  Corn, Okra, different spices.  Mostly Southern food is bland.. But being SOUTHERNER, I will say it has alot of the black influence from the Slaves.

Answer 6

The south.

Answer 7

It is a combination of cultures French-English,Irish,Spanish and African. mostly though influenced by what ingredients that were available then

Answer 8

I'm still reading what Jess said ,.but it sounds good to me..

Answer 9

South of What ?  Every country has a South, and therefore southern food.  And what is a Senoir ?

Answer 10

What do you mean? It's better than Northern food but theres nothing different ecxept the effort.

Answer 11

Go with Jess on this one....I think it really comes from all over, being that "The South" has many different ethnicities and backgrounds....

Good luck with your project!

Does it involve cooking a southern dish? That would be fun!

Answer 12

From what I thought when I've been there, there seems to be alot of English influence! Also, Cajun. But I did think biscuits are like our scones and also corn  bread like our fairy cakes!

Answer 13

My family have dug the fields of Hampshiore for centuries getting up turnips water cress, potatoes and carrots.

MIxd with nbeef into stew and pastired to become pies, often fish pies on the coast has made some of the souths best food,

Answer 14

From the South.

Look it up... it's called research.  

Internet

Library - you know the place with books that you can borrow (not Barnes and Noble or Borders)

How will you add are answers to your bibliography?

Answer 15

When it came to food, Jefferson road the leading edge. He introduced the work of French chefs into his home, even before he lived in France. He imported oil from Italy and mustard from France, introduced vanilla and macaroni to the U.S. and owned the first ice cream freezer on record.

He enjoyed his vegetables so much, many would ask if he were a vegetarian. Jefferson’s response was “[I eat meat] “as a condiment to the vegetables which constitute my principal diet.” One of his distinctive dining room rules was  guests would serve themselves from dining room dumbwaiters, away from slaves, so their sparkling conversations might not be overheard or interrupted. In the  words of one guest at a lavish occasion, “Never before had such dinners been served in the President’s House.”

A man of broad, studied interests, Thomas Jefferson’s passions dwelt in architecture, gardening, music, wine and food. Though Jefferson never cooked, he passed recipes along to chefs and friends frequently. Some if his admirers went so far as to describe Jefferson at that time, “America’s Leonardo da Vinci.”

PLEASING TO THE EYE:

Jefferson’s gardens had to be pleasing to the eye. His plan included cherry trees to line pathways which were accented by brilliant vines  against contrasting, brightly-colored vegetable rows. He was particular about plants along his garden borders as well.  

VEGETABLES:

Jefferson’s lab was where he experimented with imported squashes and broccoli from Italy, beans and salsify collected by the Lewis and Clark Expedition, figs from France and peppers from Mexico. At times, he grew as many as twenty varieties of beans and almost as many types of English peas, always eliminating types he deemed inferior.  Although the English pea was probably his favorite vegetable, he was also fond of figs, asparagus, French artichokes and the “new vegetables,” tomatoes, eggplant, broccoli and cauliflower.  

Jefferson loved his salads, planting lettuce and radishes every two weeks during the growing season. He mixed his Greens with orach, corn salad, endive and nasturtiums. Also included was some prized sea kale, a cabbage-like vegetable which produced sprouts each spring. Regular crops of sesame seeds assured fresh salad oil.  

FRUITS:

        The fruited acreage included orchards, vineyards, berry squares and a propogating nursery.  In all he experimented with over 150 varieties of 31 different fruits. In addition, the orchard grew three varieties of cider apples, also peach trees from seed. In all, the fruitery represented Old World fruit gardens and colonial Virginia’s “Farm Orchards,” the best of European heritage combined with New World vitality.  

WINE:

Amid much acclaim, Thomas Jefferson, at the time, was proclaimed America’s “first distinguished viticulturist,” and “the greatest patron of wine and winegrowing this country.”  though he probably never made wine at Monticello. His love for fine wines began in France where he began collecting them. He felt wine was an “innocent gratification” and a “healthy substitute” for whiskey. His eventual wine expertise led to his becoming wine advisor to Presidents Washington, Adams, Madison and Monroe.

RECIPES

No original Monticello cookbook or menus survive in a collected body. However, the greatest collection of recipes of that time are recorded in Marie Kimball’s Thomas Jefferson’s Cook Book. She credits each recipe with the names of those who shared his love for food. A partial list is:

Martha J. Randolph (daughter)

Mary Randolph (Martha’s sister-in-law, author of The Virginia Housewife)

Adrien Petit (butler, 1786-1794)

James Hemings (slave trained in French cuisine in Paris)

Honore Julien (chef at President’s House)

Etienne Lemaire (butler at President’s House)

Comte de Volney (French visitor 1796)

From the recipes in the book, we glean a sense of the time and what an important role simplicity played. A brief description of selected recipes is stated below to demonstrate the food combinations of the day and sometimes an innovative method.  

BLANC MANGE

Mix ground, skinned, blanched almonds with cream and sugar and incorporate it with dissolved gelatin, poured into a mould.

(Recipe from France)

MEXICAN BEAN SOUP

Answer 16

It came from the South.