southern breakfast
In the South, the breakfast that was put on the table was meant to fuel workers for the entire day. So the breakfast was filling and nutritious. Unfortunately it also featured a lot of fried foods because they were quick to make.
Most Southern breakfasts feature biscuits in some form. Often they would be covered with a country-style gravy commonly called sawmill gravy. There would also be eggs, usually fried, country ham with red-eye gravy and almost always grits.
Grits are 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. It is often eaten mixed in fried eggs with the yellow running, cooked with cheese, eaten with lots of butter and jelly, or eaten with sugar like a cereal. My personal experience in the South is that grits come with breakfast no matter what you are having.
Regionally there would be variations on this theme. Sometime there would be barbeque meat. Corned beef hash is popular topped wit a fried egg. Chicken fried steak is often served with eggs, biscuits and gravy, and homefries or hash browns. In some places you may find fried chicken or pork chops on the breakfast table.
Often vegetables would be served including fried green tomatoes, greens, beans, or black eyed peas. Black eyed peas are traditionally served with breakfast on New Year’s Day.
Biscuits are ever present. Usually they are topped with gravy, but sometimes honey, jelly, or even the grits. You would also find cornbread, french toast, 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), or johnny cakes, a cornmeal pancake, as well as buttermilk pancakes.
Of course, the Southern breakfast doesn’t come nearly like this. But on a regular basis, expect biscuits and gravy, grits, eggs, and ham.
That’ll keep you going all day.
