Traditional Southern Breakfast
In the South, homemade biscuits served with country-style gravy (also called sawmill gravy), country ham and red eye gravy and grits are one traditional breakfast menu; the Southwest has huevos rancheros and spicy breakfast burritos; scrapple is a favorite in the Mid-Atlantic states- Many Soul food breakfast menus across the country include fried chicken wings, catfish, pork chops and salmon croquettes.
Coffee is the most common breakfast beverage. In the United States, 65% of coffee drunk during the day is with breakfast.. Also common are tea, milk, hot chocolate, orange juice, and other fruit juices (grapefruit, tomato, etc). Occasionally, caffeinated carbonated beverages may be substituted for the more traditional coffee or tea. Espresso drinks such as cappuccino and latte have become increasingly popular since the 1990s.
The mother of Southern cooking
Impoverished whites and blacks in the South prepared many of the same dishes stemming from the soul tradition, but styles of preparation sometimes varied. Certain techniques popular in soul and southern cuisine like frying meat and using all parts of the animal for consumption, have a long history of which evidence occurs in ancient cultures all over the world, including Rome, Egypt and China. Whichever way it was introduced to the American South, fried meat became a common staple. To this day it is popular among Southern Euro and African-Americans.
Many people in the south debate over what the difference is between soul food and Southern cooking. Before the 1870s, the south was made up of a predominately Anglo and black population. During the 1870s, Irish, German and Czech immigrants started to come into the south bringing their own traditions coupled with soul food. Such as the creation of southern fried chicken, which is of Scottish origin from Scots-Irish immigrants to the south. The African-americans contributed some of the spices and this became a southern fusion dish. Many dishes were made by both Blacks and Whites of the south. Many Whites grew eating many of the items that is classified as Soul food, because many of the dishes in Soul food are part of White southern food as well.
It is also important to note the Native American influence on soul cooking at a time when Black Indians was relatively common. Indigenous peoples had been cultivating beans, strawberries, maize, and chili peppers; and for years, they prepared hominy (also the source of hominy grits), hotwater cornbread and strawberry bread, which Europeans appropriated as strawberry shortcake. wikipedia soul food
Common Southern Breakfast Dishes:
Southerners love fried food! Some unique soul food and southern cooking shared with other cuisines.
Meats
- Biscuit and Gravy: A real southern favorite! Popular eaten with sausage gravy, white gravy or tomato gravy
- BBQ grilled meat: great with eggs and biscuits-
- Chicken gizzards, batter-fried
- Chicken livers, batter-fried
- Corn Beef Hash: Served with eggs and catchup-
- Country fried steak: also known as "chicken fried steak" (beef deep-fried with a crisp flour or batter coating, usually served with white gravy) Perfect with buttermilk biscuits, homefries and scrambled eggs or fried eggs-
- Cracklins (commonly known as pork rinds and sometimes added to cornbread batter, also eaten by other cultures)
- Fatback (fatty, cured, salted pork; used to season meats and vegetables) Common for a small slice to nibble on between breakfast bites of eggs and grits and toast-
- Fried fish (any of several varieties of fish—especially catfish, but also whiting, porgies, bluegills—dredged in seasoned cornmeal and deep fried- Perfect with a full southern breakfast of eggs, grits, homefries & biscuits with a bit of fish gravy-
- Fried Pork Chops: Delicious with fried eggs and catchup-
- Fried Spam: Perfect with everything!
- Ham hocks (smoked, used to flavor vegetables and legumes)
- Hoghead cheese (made primarily from pig snouts, lips, and ears, and frequently referred to as "souse meat" or simply "souse", derived from European cooking techniques) Mostly ate by old timers-
- Hog jowls, (the cheek of a hog, which is usually cut into squares before being cured and smoked)
- Salmon Patties (also known as Salmon Croquet/Croquettes), a mixture of skinned & de-boned salmon, mixed with cornmeal, eggs, milk and onions fried in a skillet to make small, round patties. Served with eggs, biscuits and syrup for dipping-
- Fried Squirrel: Served with all breakfast foods-
- Fried Frog legs: Served with all breakfast foods-
Vegetables
- Home Fries: Cubed Potatoes cooked in a skillet with bacon greese and onions-
- Hash Browns: Potatoes grated and steam fried-
- Greens (usually cooked with ham hocks; especially collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, or a combination thereof. A wild green known as poke salad, which requires special preparation due to its toxicity when raw.) Served with eggs, chicken and biscuits-
- Sweet potatoes deep fried like french fries-
- Tomatoes: sliced on the side, grilled or tomato gravy-
Breads
- Buttermilk Biscuits (a shortbread similar to scones, commonly served with butter, jam, jelly, sorghum or cane syrup, or gravy; used to wipe up, or "sop," liquids from a dish) Eaten by most Americans in the south
- Biscuit and Gravy: A real southern favorite! Popular eaten with sausage gravy, white gravy or tomato gravy
- Cornbread (a shortbread often baked in a skillet, commonly seasoned with bacon fat); a Native American contribution. Very common eaten for breakfast sliced in half with butter and Sorghum syrup pored on top-
- Hoecakes (a type of cornbread made of cornmeal, salt and water, which is very thin in texture, and fried in cooking oil in a skillet. It became known as "hoecake" because field hands often cooked it on a shovel or hoe held to an open flame)
- Hot water cornbread (cornmeal mixed with hot water and fried)
- Johnny cakes (fried cornmeal pancakes, usually salted and buttered)
- Milk and bread (a "po' folks' dessert-in-a-glass" of slightly crumbled cornbread, buttermilk and sometimes sugar) Add slices of onion if having for lunch-
- Panbread (a type of unleavened bread made with flour salt, butter and water. It's cooked on top of the stove with an iron skillet. Similar to traditional flatbread that one finds within various cultures across the world.)
Other items
- Chow-chow (a spicy, homemade pickle relish sometimes made with okra, corn, cabbage, hot peppers, green tomatoes and other vegetables; commonly used to top black-eyed peas and otherwise as a condiment and side dish)
- Grits (or "hominy grits", made from processed, dried, ground corn kernels and usually eaten as a breakfast food the consistency of porridge; also served with fish and meat at dinnertime, similar to polenta) Eaten by most Americans in the south- Popular mixed in fried eggs with the yellow running, cooked with cheese or eaten with sugar like a cereal-
- Hot sauce (a condiment of cayenne peppers, vinegar, salt, garlic and other spices often used on chitterlings, fried chicken and fish including homemade or Texas Pete, Frank's, Tabasco, or Louisiana brand) A contribution from the Cajun people of Louisiana
- Sorghum syrup (from sorghum, or "Guinea corn," a sweet grain indigenous to Africa introduced into the U.S. by African slaves in the early 17th century; see biscuits); frequently referred to as "sorghum molasses"
See Also:
Chicken Dishes / Waffle Recipes /
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