1. The South eastern and central Virginia
eastern and central North Carolina
eastern and central South Carolina
central and southern Georgia
northern Florida
Alabama
Mississippi
central and western Tennessee
central and western Kentucky

2. An Agricultural Paradise
Early European explorers were deeply impressed by the South’s thick layer of fertile soil and its mild climate. They recognized that the region could become an agricultural paradise for European settlers.

3. Gentle Terrain and Rich Soil
The Appalachian Mountains extend into the region but are not part of it.
The fall line, a rocky shelf, separates the piedmont, or foothills, from the coastal plain.
The Deep South extends from northern Florida though Mississippi.
West of the Appalachians the land is gently rolling.

4. A Mild and Moist Climate
Ample moisture and mild weather are due to proximity to the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas have climates suitable for all European food crops. The Deep South has more than three hundred frost-free days allowing cultivation of subtropical plants, with two separate growing seasons for many temperate-climate crops.

5. Southern Native Americans
were agricultural tribes that practiced cyclical land use. They did not fertilize fields; when soil became depleted they moved their village to another location, eventually returning generations later.

6. Southern Native Americans
Relied on hunting and gathering as well as farming.
They practiced human seasonal migration, living in villages during the spring planting and fall harvest seasons, and traveling to hunting and foraging grounds in summer and winter.
Native American core belief: land is a common resource to be shared by all, owned by none

7. Native American Agriculture
Before European settlement the South was covered with dense hardwood forest.
Native American farmed using swidden agriculture:
Killed trees by girdling, or removing a band of bark to deprive the tree of water and nutrients.
Leaves and branches dropped off the trees.
Burned the underbrush.
Planted crops amid the standing tree trunks.

8. The Three Sisters CORN, BEANS & SQUASH are ideal companion plants.
Bean vines climb the cornstalk and support it.
Squash plants shade the soil and prevent moisture loss.
Corn uses up nitrogen in the soil, whereas beans replace it.

9. Other Crops SUNFLOWERS
seeds eaten as a snack or toasted and ground into meal to make doughs and thicken sauces
roots boiled and served as a vegetable side or in stews (sun chokes)
TOBACCO
smoked in hand-carved wooden pipes for both recreational and ceremonial purposes
an important trade item because it was highly valued by tribes living in other regions
became popular in Europe and was an early source of wealth for Southern planters

10. Hunted and Foraged Foods
venison
bear meat
bear fat for cooking
rabbits, squirrels, opossums, other small game
wildfowl
fish and shellfish
wild strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, huckleberries, plums, persimmons, and crabapples
wild mushrooms; onions; greens including purslane, cresses, dock, dandelion, ramps, and poke weed
acorns, hickory nuts, and filberts
tuckahoe root (coastal)

11. Native American Food Preservation
Native Americans preserved foods by drying, salt curing, and smoking.
Smoke is a defining flavor of Plantation South cuisine.
Smokehouses stood
on every plantation
and many farms.

12. Native American Cooking Methods
Pre-contact Native Americans did not have metal vessels or oven technology.
hot stone griddling
spit roasting
smoke roasting
pit roasting
sling bag simmering
clay pot cooking

13. Smoke Roasting
This Native American cooking method involves suspending meat, poultry, or fish over glowing coals.
Basting with liquid seasoning creates steam and smoke.
Native American smoke roasting is the precursor of modern Southern barbeque.

14. Cooking with Corn Corn’s endosperm is primarily starch and protein.
The oil-rich germ is flavorful and nutritious.
The fibrous hull is largely indigestible cellulose; it causes dough made with whole corn to lack cohesion.

15. Native American Grinding Technology
East Coast Native Americans used tree trunks carved into mortars, and slender logs carved into pestles, to grind dried corn into grits and meal.
Grits comes from the Old English word, grytta, meaning coarse meal, bran, or chaff. After sifting ground corn, the finer ground grain is cornmeal and coarser grind is grits.

16. Traditional Alkaline Processing
Boiling and soaking whole corn kernels in water treated with an alkaline substance softens the endosperm and germ, and removes the hull.
Makes corn:
more palatable
easier to digest
more nutritionally valuable.
When ground, forms a cohesive dough

17. Native American Corn Dishes
GROUND UNPROCESSED DRIED CORN Cornmeal products: cornmeal mush corn pone shuck bread Southern cornbread Grits: whole-grain grits quick grits Corn flour (used as a coating)
GREEN CORN fresh, slightly immature field corn (replaced by sweet corn) PROCESSED DRIED CORN alkaline-processed hominy (not commercially produced) steam-processed hominy PARCHED CORN green corn kernels removed from the cob and dry-roasted until most of the moisture evaporates (reconstituted by boiling)

18. Elements of Plantation South Native American Cuisine
FOUNDATION FOODS
principal starch: dried corn (maize)
principal proteins: fish, large and small game, dried beans
principal produce: squashes, pumpkins, sunflower root, wild greens
FAVORED SEASONINGS: wild herbs, wild fruits, wild onions and garlic
PRINCIPAL COOKING MEDIA: water, bear fat
PRIMARY COOKING METHODS: grilling, roasting, poaching, boiling, steaming
FOOD ATTITUDES: strong food culture, culinary liberals

19. Native American Food Attitudes
Southern Native Americans were culinary liberals with strong food cultures. They had ample resources and a broad ingredients palette. Food and corn was considered sacred. Corn was considered a high-status food included in religious ceremonies as the source of life.

20. Colonial Cuisine in the South
In 1607 English colonists sailed into the Chesapeake Bay and up the James River, and founded a colony called Virginia. An uneasy peace with the Powhatan Confederacy of Native American tribes led to an exchange of ingredients and cooking methods that resulted in the hybrid colonial South cuisine style.

21. English Colonists
English colonists in the South were primarily from the rural west of England.
They were not overly religious.
Most sought economic opportunity.
Most were culinary conservatives, products of England’s minimized food culture.
HOWEVER, in the New World they were forced by circumstances to accept indigenous foods and became culinary liberals.

22. English Cooking Methods
HEARTH COOKING
A hearth is the floor of an open fireplace.
Reflector oven
tin or copper drum with hinged door and rotating spit uses fire’s heat
Dutch oven
a heavy cast iron pot with concave lid; placed in the fire’s coals; lid is filled with coals; heats bottom and top
Spider
cast iron skillet with legs that hold it over glowing coals

23. English Cooking Methods
CAST IRON COOKING
heavy, thick-walled vessels
heat slowly and retain heat for a long time
even cooking, rarely scorches
contribute a special flavor
gives fried foods extra crunch
left: cast iron Dutch ovens

24. English Cooking Methods
OVEN BAKING Many kitchen fireplaces included a small oven built into the wall next to the fireplace and connected to it by a flue.
Ovens were used for baking:
breads
pies
Cakes

25. English Ingredients
wheat flour European vegetables, esp. root vegetables and cabbages European fruits, esp. apples domesticated food animals beef and dairy cattle chickens and eggs hogs European herbs and Asian spices
Despite colonists’ attempts to produce these foods as colonial domesticates, in much of the Plantation South, the climate was not conducive and they did not thrive.
Underlined items did not grow well, and were rarely eaten.
Thus, English colonists were deprived of many of their favored foods.

26. Elements of Old World English Cuisine
FOUNDATION FOODS
principal starch: wheat bread (less available)
principal proteins: beef, cheese (l/a)
principal produce: cabbages, root vegetables (l/a), apples (l/a)
FAVORED SEASONINGS: parsley, thyme, sage, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, onions
PRINCIPAL COOKING MEDIA: water, butter, beef suet (l/a)
PRIMARY COOKING METHODS: open-hearth cooking, including roasting, boiling, stewing; baking
FOOD ATTITUDES: minimized food culture, culinary conservatives

27. Hog Plus Smoke equals a Southern defining flavor
The marriage of smoke and hog blends a Native American cooking method with Old World domesticated hogs and herbs and spices to produce flavorful, succulent meat.
Smoke roasting is cooking method, whereas cold smoking is a food preservation method.

28. Colonial Southern Baked Goods
baked goods combining corn meal and wheat flour with eggs and dairy
cornbread
corn griddle cakes
spoon bread
wheat-based beaten biscuits
yeasted wheat breads reserved for special occasion

29. The Plantation System and Slavery
A plantation is a large parcel of land dedicated to large-scale commercial agriculture. In the South, European planters needed cheap labor to clear trees, establish fields, and plant and tend crops. The solution was slavery. Between 1620 and 1776, almost 225,000 African or Afro-Caribbean slaves were imported into the Southern colonies.

30. Plantation Cuisine
In a region with few roads and towns, and fewer lodging places, Southern plantations were expected to offer hospitality to all comers. They were known for fine dining.
Plantations were virtually self-sufficient, raising all necessary food and importing luxury goods by ship.

31. Planter Cuisine
The planters’ diet was varied, substantial, rich; focused on meat, poultry, game, seafood.
hogs produced fresh pork, hams, bacon; the favored meat for Southern barbecue
shrimp, crabs, oysters, fresh and saltwater fish
cornbread, grits, and other corn-based dishes
European and Mediterranean vegetables
Caribbean flavors

32. African Sizzle and Spice
Slave cooks applied African ingredients, cooking techniques, and tastes to planter cooking, creating Plantation South cuisine.
okra, black-eyed peas, sesame seeds, peanuts, chiles, melons
purées and pastes for thickening; frying
hot-and-spicy flavors, high seasoning, crisp-crusted foods

33. Elements of West African Cuisine
FOUNDATION FOODS
principal starches: true yams, millet, rice, (later) cornmeal
principal proteins: game meats, goat, fish, black-eyed peas
principal produce: okra, groundnuts, eggplant, leafy greens
FAVORED SEASONINGS: onions, garlic, dried and fresh chiles, sesame seeds
PRINCIPAL COOKING MEDIA: palm oil, vegetable oil
PRIMARY COOKING METHODS: spit-roasting, frying, boiling, stewing
FOOD ATTITUDES: strong food culture, culinary liberals

34. Slave Cooking
Slave cooks were given minimal rations with which to prepare their own meals. They were given meat scraps from butchering. Some were permitted to grow gardens, hunt, fish, and forage in limited spare time. Some “borrowed” seasonings from the plantation kitchen. Slaves cooks were experts at “making something out of nothing.” Dining together expressed cultural solidarity.

35. Middle Class Cooking The middle class diet was vegetable-based:
collard and turnip greens, sweet potatoes, turnips, cabbage, green corn, black-eyed peas, pole beans, butter beans, okra
Meat, especially cured and smoked pork, was used as a seasoning: ham, smoked hocks and neck bones, salt pork, bacon
Cornmeal products were the staff of life.
Hunting, fishing, foraging were important food sources.

36. Elements of Plantation South Cuisine
FOUNDATION FOODS
principal starches: cornmeal dishes, wheat flour quick breads, rice
principal proteins: pork (fresh, preserved), beans, seafood, poultry
principal produce: collard greens, turnips and turnip greens, green
beans, okra, sweet corn
FAVORED SEASONINGS: smoke, cured and smoked seasoning meats, cayenne pepper, bottled hot sauce, thyme, sage, granulated onion and garlic
PRINCIPAL COOKING MEDIA: lard, vegetable oil
PRIMARY COOKING METHODS: pan-frying, barbecue, stewing/simmering
FOOD ATTITUDES: strong food culture, culinary liberals

37. The Civil War and Beyond
The Civil War devastated the Plantation South environmentally, economically, and socially. The “genteel poor” maintained the traditions of Plantation South Cuisine. Economic revival in the late 19th century.

38. Post-Civil War Culinary Developments
SOUTHERN BARBEQUE
moved from the plantation to the roadside
traditional barbecue is cooked outdoors.
hickory wood favored for smoke.
meats seasoned with spice rub and basted with a tangy mopping sauce
SOUTHERN DESSERTS
development of chemical leaveners unleashed a flurry of creativity
tall cakes
pies
cobblers and crisps
biscuit shortcake

39. Contemporary Plantation South Cuisine
In the 1980s chefs and cookbook authors began refining and promoting Plantation South cuisine.
Today chefs apply European techniques and modern presentations.

40. The Development of Plantation South Cuisine