Posted on 12/28/2011 4:35:49 PM PST by mandaladon
The New York Times has declared down home Southern cooking undignified in a story that heaped praise on a new generation of Southern chefs while denigrating fried chicken, Cracker Barrel restaurants and the Queen of Southern Food — Paula Deen.
The food snobs at the Times attacked Miss Paula in the second sentence of their lengthy diatribe – calling her a “so-called queen of Southern food, who cooks with canned fruit and Crisco.”
The Times bemoaned the “hayseed image” of Southern cooking while praising “a new generation of chefs who have pushed Southern cooking into the vanguard of world cuisine.”
Their headline proclaimed – “Vanquishing the Colonel – Farmers work with chefs to restore Southern cuisine’s dignity.”
You can read the entire story by clicking here.
“Today, purists believe, Southern cooking is too often represented by its worst elements: feedlot hams, cheap fried chicken and chains like Cracker Barrel,” the Times whined.
Perhaps The New York Times should consider first restoring its own dignity before launching a crusade against shrimp and grits.
It seems to me that the “so-called” queen of Southern cooking should fly up to New York City and take a cast iron skillet to the backside of the “so-called” newspaper that printed such nonsense.
But Miss Paula is a genteel Southern lady and would probably just shake her head and say, “Oh Lord, y’all.”
So as a proud son of the South, I believe it is my duty to defend the honor of our skillet friend chicken, our ham hocks and our sweet potato pies. Nobody speaks ill of butter and gets away with it.
For the record, I happen to have a Cracker Barrel rocking chair in my office at the Fox News Corner of the World – along with several copies of Paula Deen’s cookbooks.
(Excerpt) Read more at radio.foxnews.com ...
Thanks for the tip. I’ll keep that in mind when I’m in Dubai.
Correction (it has been a long time):
FIRST you boil it and then you peel off the membrane.
Yous can lay off’n Cracker Barrel, grits, salt-cured ham, okra, black-eyed peas and home cookin’.
People who pride themselves on eating raw fish, pureed raw meat and fish eggs have no place to complain. At all. May you drown in an ocean of pink Himalayan sea salt.
I read the NY Times article and I think Starnes is mischaracterizing the story a bit. It was a little nose-in-the-air, but the primary gist I got from it was that southerners were reclaiming their traditions and tired of the hayseed stereotypes.
I actually tend to agree that what a lot of folks up north think is genuine southern cooking really isn’t. Anymore than most “Cajun” dishes served up north during the 80’s Cajun fad had very little to do with anything served in places like Shreveport or The Big Easy. There’s nothing in this world like a slice of real Virginia dry-cured ham frying up in the pan with red-eye gravy and some biscuits on the side. Or buttermilk pie, or shrimp and grits, or a hundred other southern dishes.
I agree re: Cracker Barrel. I took my mom there once for lunch, and wasn’t all that impressed. It was okay, but I could have ate just as well at a cafeteria for less money. Certainly nothing in the same league as my grandma (who hailed from W. Virginia) would have served up for Sunday supper.
Not bad.
Would A-1 sauce taste good with it?
Chicken speidies
Then why does every Yankee that eats my cheese biscuits want me to bake another batch? Yes, I use Crisco.
Fighting words - read later
I’m Southern by the Grace of God from way back, but not a fan of Paula Deen or Cracker Barrel (except that they make dumplings the right way). Neither are true representatives of real Southern cooking. After having waited for over an hour in line at Deen’s restaurant for a very mediocre meal I will attest that the cooking there is definitely not worth the wait.
The beauty of Southern cooking, if you know how to do it, is that you can update it, make additions, subtractions and substitutions, and it will still be delicious.
My Yankee husband from upstate NY never knew that food tasted so good until he moved South. To this day grits are one of his favorite foods, but he uses sugar (gah!!!) instead of butter and salt.
Yours must have been better than mine.
Feeling a bit defensive, my Freeper Southerners?
The NY Times is simply applying its same upper-middle-class locavore/foodie trendiness to your region as it has to the rest of the country. Nothing more disdainful than the usual.
And most of your defenses—talking about Grandma’s good cooking with fresh local ingredients—is actually in line with what those in the movement are trying to get back to. The message is that the South has a rich local culinary heritage that purists are working to replicate, sometimes with their own embellishments.
I have always had a dificult time finding a good steak. Bones in Atlanta, Chophouse in Chicago, Pappas in Dallas are about it.
Mortons, Ruths Chris are ok.
Best steak experience I had was at Gallaghers in NYC. Steaks are aged and they are good. A friend of mine and I were celebrating a job promotion and went there for dinner.
After dinner, we brought out the Cohibas. Family next to us complained to the waiter that we were smoking. Waiter told them he would gladly change their table. They asked for the manager.
They told the manager unless we quit smoking they were going to get up and leave. Now two of us and 10 of them. Their bill eclipsed ours significantly.
Waiter apologized and told them to leave. At the time Gallaghers was cigar friendly.
“I watched a program that featured bizarre foods such as tarantulas dipped in batter and fried and cockroaches injected with tariyaki sauce.”
OK.
I need to lose weight anyway, and the thought of these are taking up enough head space to get me in the right frame of mind. So, thanks, I guess. ;>
Obviously, they haven't had the pleasure of some of the finest southern cooking in the world. But then, to each his own. Pass the greens and ham please.
Obviously, they haven't had the pleasure of some of the finest southern cooking in the world. But then, to each his own. Pass the greens and ham please.
The New York Times? Snobbish bastards aren’t they?
Pass the greens and ham please.......
More explicit racism that is excused by the Left because it is uttered by the Left.
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