15 Nostalgic Foods You Probably Ate Growing Up In The American South

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

There's arguably no region in America producing more nostalgic comfort food than the South. But there's a "whole nuther" level of Southern cuisine that's perfectly ordinary to locals yet appears in films and books as a curiosity at best. Some dishes have partially entered the mainstream, while many stay tucked into the nooks and crannies of Deep South culture. 

One thing for sure is this: Anyone raised in the South, including myself, will always be drawn to the deep connection between what's on the plate and what's in the heart. As a child of the Mississippi Delta — where blues cafés, backyard fish frys, and sweet iced tea are as natural as breathing — I return to the clay earth and cotton fields several times a year. Just don't tell my Delta family it's the food pulling me across all those state lines to what will always be home.

What's known as "the South" is a wide region with many distinct cultures and cuisines, but foodways do travel, share, and intermingle through the generations, creating merged recipes and nuanced dishes. In that vein, the following is my own list of 15 commonplace nostalgic foods you may well have eaten growing up in the quirky regions of the American South.

You've likely heard of black-eyed peas being a symbol of good luck on New Year's Day, and that's certainly true. But it doesn't mean the black-eyed beauties show up only once a year. These earthy peas, slow-boiled with bacon or ham hocks, are a mainstay on everyday dinner plates, often served alongside chunks of buttered cornbread. I've spent many summer days on the front porch, shelling field-fresh black-eyed peas gifted by hardworking farming families. To jazz things up a bit, there's the Carolina Lowland's Hoppin' John, a deceptively complex version.

Believe it or not, roasted peanuts in bottled Coke is still a thing, though admittedly a bit harder to find these days. That's unfortunate, since it's one of the greatest simple pleasures of growing up in the American South. In my shared experience, the nostalgic challenge on a lazy afternoon is pulling an icy-cold bottle of coke from a country store's ice chest, dropping in some peanuts, tipping the bottle, and slowly sipping while trying to consume all the peanuts before the Coke disappears. Precaution: Chew the peanuts before swallowing!

My earliest memories include warm buttermilk biscuits in my grandma's cottage on a vast cotton plantation. They were always homemade and buttered hot, with crunchy lids like craggy flying saucers — a telltale sign of perfectly made Southern biscuits. It's tempting to peel off the lids and  devour them right away, but then you'd miss out on the crowning glory: a thick pool of lightly spiced homemade sausage gravy slowly sliding off the biscuits into thick puddles. This biscuit tradition has changed little, if any, over the decades.

Most anyone raised with a Southern drawl and a sweet tooth knows about no-bake lemon icebox pie. Its name comes from the literal ice boxes that kept food cooled before refrigeration arrived, especially in rural communities. Instead of jell-like filling, lemon icebox pies feature creamy condensed milk and fresh lemon juice, tucked into a graham cracker or vanilla wafer crust, and topped by lightly toasted meringue or whipped cream. Since moving away from the South, my family routinely welcomes me home with a blind tasting competition of three locally made lemon icebox pies. That's how engrained this dessert is in Southern food circles. 

Southern cheese straws are nothing like the gooey, warm cheese sticks popular in other parts of the country. These crunchy vertical straws are less appetizer and more savory, snack-like pastry. When baked correctly, they have a toothy texture while still crumbling in your mouth at first bite. My childhood-concocted recipe for these deeply cheesy straws proudly earned my first and only 4-H Club blue ribbon at the state fair. They're now available online from the Mississippi Cheese Straw Factory in plain or spicy versions which can be shipped to your home — even if it's in Yankee territory.  

The very idea of boiling peanuts is understandably a curiosity to the uninitiated. But as the Southern saying goes: "Just wait 'til you taste 'em." The raw peanuts, shells and all, are slow boiled with salt for several hours until soft, then commonly sold in paper bags, sometimes kept warm for immediate snacking. Southerners of all ages remember buying them in plain or spicy versions, available at gas stations, roadside stands, and farmer's markets — and that hasn't changed. Just look for large handwritten signs and plenty of vehicles pulling in. 

Fried green tomatoes tumbled into American culture via a fictional Alabama café in the film "Fried Green Tomatoes" – but they've stuck around for good reason. They're tangy, juicy, crunchy, deep-fried to a golden crust, and just plain delicious, appearing in countless real-life cafés and cast-iron skillets across the South. But here's the deal with genuine fried green 'maters: They're not made from special green varieties of tomatoes, just regular red ones that haven't yet ripened. You can actually buy a fried green tomato batter mix on Amazon, a product of the Original WhistleStop Cafe.

Coastal regions of the American South naturally lean into sea-faring cuisine, and those recipes gravitate inland, becoming part of the catch-all Southern food person, and that includes spicy Louisiana stews like gumbo. Anyone growing up in the region has likely enjoyed gumbo at home, in restaurants, or at backyard seafood-focused parties. Versions vary, but most feature a thick, dark roux, plenty of shrimp, crawfish, and other seafood, andouille sausage, okra, filé, earthy spices, and the "holy trinity" Cajun mirepoix of onions, celery, and bell peppers. My secret for extra flavor is making gumbo in a slow cooker. 

Growing up in the Mississippi Delta meant more than cotton, corn, and blues music on sultry summer evenings — it also meant a whole lot of catfish and classic Southern fish fry traditions. Many restaurants in the Deep South — including the country-food café once owned by my family — offer catfish on the menu, and most of it comes deep-fried in a cornmeal batter. Over the decades, one thing remains the same: Fried catfish routinely arrives on a platter with hush puppies, which are cute little balls of spiced and fried cornmeal batter. 

Southern-style turnip greens generally garner a love-hate relationship with young eaters who don't yet care about the powerful nutrients tucked into those leafy greens. They typically carry a sharp, peppery flavor when raw, fortunately mellowing when cooked, to the point of being a much-loved vegetable in many Southern kitchens, soul food cafés, and meat-and-three dining spots. That's especially true when cooking chopped turnip greens with thick-cut smoked bacon and garlic, which boosts and deepens the flavor. Older generations may even remember adding a spoonful of bacon grease instead of actual bacon pieces.

Black-bottom pie is a fiercely debated dessert when it comes to its namesake feature, the so-called black bottom. I grew up eating this in the South, and still routinely make it in my own adulthood kitchen. To me, it's a rich, custardy, pudding-based pie whose black bottom comes from the crust being made with crushed Oreo cookies, and the whole pie gets topped with swirled whipped cream. To other Southerners, the black bottom refers to a bottom layer of silky chocolate custard atop a graham cracker crust. Some folks also lace the filling with a splash of rum.  

To many people, ambrosia is a "food of the gods" in ancient Greek and Roman mythology. But in the American South, it's not so ambiguous, referring specifically to a sweet, fluffy salad filled with oranges and other citrus fruits, fresh or packaged coconut, sugar, a good bit of whipped or sour cream, marshmallow fluff, and sometimes maraschino cherries and crushed pineapple. Anyone raised in the South has likely encountered this over-the-top dish as part of holiday celebrations or an eccentric aunt's infamous Sunday suppers. 

Chess pie is one of those desserts that never fully made it past Southern borders, which is a mystery to those who grew up eating the rich, custardy, firm-yet-soft pie with a curiously crackly covering. It's the kind of fiercely protected family recipe that even actual relatives hide from one another for years on end. We're talking lots of butter, brown sugar, eggs, and two surprising filling ingredients: white vinegar and cornmeal. There's also a chocolate version of chess pie that's not quite as nostalgic, but perfectly tasty. 

One of the most Southern dishes imaginable, at least by naming standards, is something called chicken-fried steak. Despite its name, chicken-fried steak is actually made with beef, typically a cube steak that's battered and deep-fried in the same way as Southern fried chicken — thus the name. For as long as I can remember, it's been an ever-present menu item, served with creamy white gravy, appearing in country cafés, school cafeterias, home dining rooms, and even fine-dining venues if gussied up a bit. 

No serious look at nostalgic foods from the American South ignores what's arguably the most Southern food of all time: golden, deep-fried chicken. But increasingly, the very specific Nashville hot chicken fills many a memory lane for those growing up in the region. It's not just cooked and served in Nashville, despite the name. It's basically fried chicken coated in a sweet, spicy, and savory oil served open-faced on white bread with pickle slices. Sometimes a recipe requires a warning sign or issues a challenge, like the Shut the Cluck Up Competition at Hattie B's.