Sweet tea is the house wine of the South.

When asking for iced tea in a restaurant, Southerners say, “Tea, please.” We mean sweet tea. The “sweet” is always implied. If we want unsweetened tea, we ask for it. more...

McDonald’s is the world’s largest restaurant company.

A worldwide food company must cater to varied tastes in each country. In Ireland, McDonald’s serves a Shamrock Shake. It’s a green milkshake. Green dairy products never would sell in America. more...

“He was a bold man that first ate an oyster” – Jonathan Swift

I often wonder about the origins of food and the journeys made by our gastronomic forefathers. We tend to overlook those culinary pioneers who took great risks in discovering the foods we enjoy today. Magellan might have sailed to the Philippines, but that is nothing compared to the man who first ate a snail. more...

SCENE 1: Christmas party 2002. I am talking to a foodie friend while working on my third tray of chicken-salad sandwiches.
ME: “What have you been cooking lately?”
FOODIE: “Lamb.” more...

As I said in last week’s column, I never have eaten chitlins. So with the hopes of broadening my culinary horizons, I went on a mission. I traveled to one of my favorite catfish houses: Rayner’s Seafood House in Hattiesburg where Kim and Mickey Rayner have been serving some of the best catfish in South Mississippi for 41 years. Every Tuesday they add chitlins to the menu. Always willing to try anything once, I went. more...

Recently I wrote a semi-controversial column about eating possum. I unexpectedly was bombarded with phone calls and e-mails from proud and angry possum eaters. I never had eaten possum. I still haven’t eaten possum. I began to worry that there might be other controversial Southern delicacies that I have been missing out on. more...

Are we witnessing the death of real food?

Maybe so, maybe not. We might, however, be witnessing the regrettable decline of one of the South’s most beloved restaurant concepts, Lazy Susan restaurants. The first Lazy Susan restaurant in Mississippi, possibly one of the first in the country, was the Mendenhall Hotel Revolving Tables. It opened in 1915. Sadly, it closed in 2001. more...

When I die and go to heaven, I imagine it will look a lot like Blackberry Farm.

In the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, about 30 miles as the crow flies from Gatlinburg, sits Blackberry Farm, an 1,800-acre slice of heaven in the foothills. It might be 30 miles from Gatlinburg and its ilk, but it is truly a world away. more...

All right people, settle down and stop the e-mails and phone calls. I now will admit it. People in the South eat possum. Who knew?

A few weeks ago I wrote a column about Hollywood’s misconceptions of the South. I had been watching a program in which a stereotypical Southerner, an actor, was eating possum. This actor was excited about eating possum. He couldn’t wait to have a second helping of possum. The audience was laughing at him, not with him. more...

There are many avenues into the food business.

There are restaurants, cafeterias, diners, delicatessens and variations on those themes. There are food suppliers, grocers, cooking teachers, cookbook authors, restaurant reviewers, cooking supply manufacturing companies, restaurant supply warehouses, ad infinitum. I fit into the restaurateur/food writer/consumer-of-mass-quantities-of-groceries category. more...

While channel-surfing on the idiot box the other day, I came across another one of those clichéd programs about the South. These supposed Southerners were talking about eating a possum.

As long as I have lived in the South I have never eaten a possum. No one I know has ever eaten a possum. I never have been to anyone’s house who served possum. I never have seen possum offered on a restaurant menu and I never have seen possum in the frozen meat section of a grocery store. more...

I have happened upon a Deep South restaurant enigma.

In an era when restaurants hire publicists, image consultants and advertising specialists, when national chains spend ridiculous sums to acquire locations with the highest traffic counts, the Gallery restaurant in Merigold, Miss., (pop. 607) is a culinary anomaly and the exception to every restaurant rule. more...

My wife cooks excellent pancakes.

On the 1960s cornball sitcom “Green Acres”, the running joke was that Lisa Douglas, played by Eva Gabor, couldn’t cook. All she ever cooked was pancakes; she couldn’t prepare anything else. Whenever she tried, it was a complete disaster and an excellent opportunity for comic relief. more...

Where did 2002 go? It seems as if we jumped from the Fourth of July to Christmas over the course of two weeks.

As I set my sights on 2003, I will resist the compulsion to make a bunch of unachievable New Year’s resolutions (most of which I never intend to keep). This year I’m taking the wish-list route. more...

It’s Christmas and Jack Frost isn’t nipping at my nose. I am in the Piney Woods of South Mississippi and it’s 78 degrees. The closest we’ve come to Jack Frost is his second cousin, Harvey Humidity. more...

I grew up on Bellewood Drive in my hometown of Hattiesburg.

It was small as far as streets go, only 10 houses. But it was a great street to grow up on. The neighbors knew each other, the kids played with one another, each person took care of the other and I borrowed food from everyone. more...

ORLANDO, Fla. – My weekly column is loosely based on food. Sometimes I write about restaurant food, sometimes fine-dining food and other times home-cooked food. Today’s column is about mouse food. more...

Robert St. John is on vacation this week.

Filling in is world-renowned and celebrated food-advice columnist, Dr. J. Collard Green. Dr. Collard Green is a board-certified food, cooking and eating-advice specialist who has spent 41 years cooking, eating and advising (mostly eating). more...

One of the world’s largest purchasers of chicken is the U.S. Department of Defense.
The Department of Defense buys millions of pounds of poultry each year. But not all the chickens are winding up in military mess halls and soldiers’ stomachs. Some are being used as ammunition. Yes folks, the newest weapon in the U.S. military arsenal is not an Apache helicopter, a laser-guided missile or a stealth bomber. It’s a chicken cannon. more...

Wyatt Waters and I have been on the road promoting our new book, “A Southern Palate”. We call it the “Beer Dogs and Palm Trees Tour 2002” (A reference to the only thing Wyatt knows how to cook and the only thing I can draw). more...

If there is one thing I hate it’s a newspaper columnist who uses his or her weekly allotment of verbiage to shamelessly promote side projects. more...

I have spent the last 15 months publishing a book.

Wyatt Waters, the celebrated watercolorist, and I have self-published a coffee-table style cookbook with 130 contemporary seasonal Southern recipes, 13 short essays and 35 original watercolors. During this process I learned a lot about the publishing business. more...

Calling all trial lawyers!

Tort-reform legislation is coming, and not a moment too soon. In New York, two overweight teenage girls are suing McDonald’s, claiming the fast-food company made them fat. This story comes on the heels of the similar story of an obese man who sued Burger King and Wendy’s because he is overweight and has health problems. more...

So we took our daughter to her school carnival.

I love school carnivals. Along with Christmas parades and high school football games, they are part of what makes living in small-town South so special. more...