Vegetables

The misconception that southern cooks have always overcooked their vegetables continues, despite a large amount of evidence to the contrary. The overcooking and oversalting that are often associated with the South in fact arrived along with poverty after the Civil War, when the Lowcountry lost many of its farms and its people began to depend on bland dried and canned goods. But antebellum cookbooks, diaries, and farm journals note in no uncertain terms precise gardening techniques and short cooking times for nearly all the green vegetables. I dare say there’s not a vegetable grown today that early Sandlappers did not themselves cultivate, and with relish.