Actually if you haven’t had meatloaf with brown gravy in the Deep South, you’re missing out.
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I remember fondly (not) when I lived in the ‘Deep South” in the late 60s - mine usually went one of two places: the waste basket or the toilet - if I could get there in time ...
G-d awful southern cooking, right up there with the ‘cooking’ done in the UK ...
So, you recommend New England cooking? LOL - much like the Old England cooking.
Like most things, you have to know where to go. Good food and bad food both abound, sometimes side by side. An exception to good and bad food, in my experience, when I was there in 1986-1987, was Key West. Every restaurant I went into, with the exception of Wendy's, was great.....and Jimmy Buffett taught guitar and song writing classes, for free.
I was in UK 1991-1992. The local village restaurant owner admitted to getting his green beans and beets off the side of the road, where the local farm tractor would spill them. At the same time, six miles away was a michelin star restaurant built into a 15th century water mill, whose water wheel still worked.