Southern style cooking has influences from Soul food, Creole, Cajun, African and Native American cultures. Southern cooking is often considered comfort food. Vegetables like squash, tomatoes, corn, and beans are used a lot in southern cooking. Corn especially is used to make all kinds of dishes like cornbread and grits.

Southern food has a reputation for bean-based dishes as well as foods such as cornbread or the popular breakfast dish, biscuits and gravy. Also noted are fried catfish, pork barbecue, and other meats that are deep pit barbecued.

Some favorite southern foods includes, beer cheese, peanuts, collard greens, black eyed peas, butter beans, fresh string beans right from the garden, southern fried chicken, pickled beets, bread and butter pickles, corn on the cob, homemade buttermilk biscuits, fried green tomatoes, blue crab cakes, deep-fried oysters, oyster stew, hamhocks, Smithfield ham, country gravy, and of course, the every popular sweet tea. You can't finish off a great southern style meal without sweet potato, peach or pecan pie.

A traditional Southern meal consists of deep fried chicken, fresh stringed beans, homemade mashed potatoes, cornbread, and sweet tea. The green beans are often flavored with salt pork or bacon and served with biscuits and country gravy made from the fried chicken drippings.

Here are a couple of southern style recipes for you to try.

Giblet Gravy

Ingredients:

• 3 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup chickenor turkey, chopped
  
• 4 T flour, mixed with enough water to make a paste
• Salt and Pepper
  

Instructions:

Let the chicken broth reach a boiling point in a 2-quart saucepan. Add the chicken and stir the flour paste gradually into the boiling mixture until thickened to the consistency desired, adding more or less flour paste as needed. Add pepper and salt to taste.

Sweet Potato Casserole

Ingredients:

• 3 large sweet potatoes
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1 T vanilla flavoring

Topping Ingredients:

• 1 cup pecans
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
  

Instructions:

Peel and cook sweet potatoes until tender. Drain, mash and add to other ingredients in a large bowl. Pour into a greased casserole dish.

Topping: Melt butter and add all other ingredients together in a small bowl. Pour over sweet potatoes and bake in a 350° oven for 35 minutes.