I'm grateful to Cynthia Bertelsen's piece in New Salt. It set me the task of thinking hard about the history of a region which is half my heritage. Consider this short essay the first course.
A good place to begin tracing the influence of English food ways on Southern food is historian David Hackett Fisher's Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America. Published in 1989, it has been called one of the greatest works of American History.
And it shows us that the diversity of Southern food has its earliest origin in the diversity of just one of the nations who sent colonists to what would become the South.
Fisher follows the English from four regions in England to four regions of the early colonies: East Anglia to Massachusetts, the South of England to Virginia, the North Midlands to the Delaware and the Borderlands of North Britain to the Backcountry. Based on extensive research on both sides of the Atlantic, Fisher describes, in rich detail, the characteristics that distinguished each group.
Food ways get special attention. The sections on tidewater Virginia and the Backcountry or interiors of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia and some coastal regions of South Carolina, cover two major regions of what we now call the South. We learn that English food ways varied by region, and carried into regional variations in food ways across the South.
Virginia's culinary customs were highly stratified. Prosperous planters kept the same food ways as the gentry in southwestern England. Roast beef was a huge favorite, as were asparagus and strawberries. The more humble folk ate one dish meals of greens with salt meat and hominy or corn porridge. Fisher observes that the 17th century diet of those of humble rank was both much like the diet of farm workers in the south and west of England, and similar to black "soul food" in the 20th. "Frigacy" or "fricassee" of chicken, veal or rabbit simmered in an open pan was favored by the middle and upper classes. Fried chicken was another favorite of the elites like the Byrds and Carters.
Fisher concludes that this style of Virginia cooking became the basis for Southern food---highly seasoned, roasted, simmered or fried. It is similar to the English cooking style called "Dorset fashion." However, baking developed very slowly on the Chesapeake. Another common feature of Virginia and the south and west of England was the observance of feasts at funerals, and holy days such as Easter Monday and Christmas.
The North British Origins of the settlers of the Southern Highlands made for fundamental differences. "Clabber, butter, fat mushy bacon, cornbread...they know neither beef nor mutton." Clabber or sour milk with curds and whey was the staple of both North Britain and the backcountry. The North Britons returned the potato to the Americas. The small cakes of unleavened dough, baked on a stone or circular griddle in an open hearth go by many names but are ubiquitous in North Britain and the southern backcountry. True baking was not favored. The oats of the North were replaced by maize, and pig's flesh, boiled or fried, was despised in North Britain but in the backcountry replaced difficult to maintain sheep. The favored Feast dish for community events in the backcountry was a "pot-pie" boiled in iron cooking pot over the hearth.
The question perhaps is, of all this, what remains and why?
A good place to begin tracing the influence of English food ways on Southern food is historian David Hackett Fisher's Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America. Published in 1989, it has been called one of the greatest works of American History.
And it shows us that the diversity of Southern food has its earliest origin in the diversity of just one of the nations who sent colonists to what would become the South.
Fisher follows the English from four regions in England to four regions of the early colonies: East Anglia to Massachusetts, the South of England to Virginia, the North Midlands to the Delaware and the Borderlands of North Britain to the Backcountry. Based on extensive research on both sides of the Atlantic, Fisher describes, in rich detail, the characteristics that distinguished each group.
Food ways get special attention. The sections on tidewater Virginia and the Backcountry or interiors of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia and some coastal regions of South Carolina, cover two major regions of what we now call the South. We learn that English food ways varied by region, and carried into regional variations in food ways across the South.
Virginia's culinary customs were highly stratified. Prosperous planters kept the same food ways as the gentry in southwestern England. Roast beef was a huge favorite, as were asparagus and strawberries. The more humble folk ate one dish meals of greens with salt meat and hominy or corn porridge. Fisher observes that the 17th century diet of those of humble rank was both much like the diet of farm workers in the south and west of England, and similar to black "soul food" in the 20th. "Frigacy" or "fricassee" of chicken, veal or rabbit simmered in an open pan was favored by the middle and upper classes. Fried chicken was another favorite of the elites like the Byrds and Carters.
Fisher concludes that this style of Virginia cooking became the basis for Southern food---highly seasoned, roasted, simmered or fried. It is similar to the English cooking style called "Dorset fashion." However, baking developed very slowly on the Chesapeake. Another common feature of Virginia and the south and west of England was the observance of feasts at funerals, and holy days such as Easter Monday and Christmas.
The North British Origins of the settlers of the Southern Highlands made for fundamental differences. "Clabber, butter, fat mushy bacon, cornbread...they know neither beef nor mutton." Clabber or sour milk with curds and whey was the staple of both North Britain and the backcountry. The North Britons returned the potato to the Americas. The small cakes of unleavened dough, baked on a stone or circular griddle in an open hearth go by many names but are ubiquitous in North Britain and the southern backcountry. True baking was not favored. The oats of the North were replaced by maize, and pig's flesh, boiled or fried, was despised in North Britain but in the backcountry replaced difficult to maintain sheep. The favored Feast dish for community events in the backcountry was a "pot-pie" boiled in iron cooking pot over the hearth.
The question perhaps is, of all this, what remains and why?
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