Southern Comfort: Food

Only in the South can you order a "vegetable" side dish that consists of such items as fried squash, beans, and ... brownies, Jell-O, banana pudding, cherry cobbler and such foods that I would never have considered as veggies even at my most desperate moments. Nor would Weight Watchers, South Beach Diet or even Atkin’s. But, it sure makes things interesting.

I discovered this veggie anomaly in the South when I first visited Charlotte, the city that very soon after became my hometown, and had lunch at a Southern Family restaurant. Most of these are owned by local Greek families but very rarely offer Greek foods. They always serve what could fairly be called "home-cooked" meals - rich, filling, stuff your mom might have cooked if you grew up in the South, anywhere in the South. It’s reminiscent of southern home cooked dinners, without the preparations: vegetable gardens, hog butchery, mornings full of baking biscuits and bread and cooking full mid-day meals for the family and farm hands.

Then there are the fish-camps. I'd always thought a "fish-camp" was a cabin on a remote lake where men would go for a few days to fish, tell fish tales, drink beer, and fish some more. If they didn't catch any for whatever reason -- too much talking and/or beer -- it was easy enough to pick up some fresh (and mysteriously cleaned and perhaps even filleted) fish on the way home.

Not so in the South. After talking about it for weeks, a friend invited me to a fish-camp. To my surprise, we pulled into a parking lot well within city borders! It was a restaurant! Hmmm... This one was also owned by a Greek family. The menu, oddly enough, was all fish of this or that type, and some other seafood like shrimp. Not a vegetable dish in sight. Instead, fried catfish - deep fried, that is, hushpuppies and slaw, cole slaw, that is. And fried flounder. The first trip I didn't know I could order grilled or broiled - my preference. I did have a choice of potatoes - fries or baked. I had the catfish. Too much of it. I'd expected a filet or two, but a plateful of catfish is what I got, a pile of catfish. Very good, to be sure, but I'd never be able to finish it. My friend had fried flounder, also a lot. HE finished it all, and then finished my catfish.

Oh, and this is important, iced tea comes with everything - usually sweet, unless you ask for unsweetened. Sweet iced tea is usually made by starting with thick sugar syrup to which tea is added, and then adding some water. Only enough to make it liquid enough to drink. I soon learned to order unsweetened tea to go with my grilled or broiled catfish or flounder.