Recipes from the United States – Part Four, the Carolinas and Georgia

I have always travelled south by train. This is much the best way, for it gives you an idea of the distance between, say, Washington D.C. and Savannah, Georgia; and it enables you to observe the changes in scenery, vegetation and people at a pace which is just right for perceiving both their gradual nature and their magnitude. It is indeed another world south of Cape Hatteras, for man and for fish.

Down in the Carolinas and Georgia we come to the great shrimping grounds of the eastern seaboard. If the blue crab and the oyster dominate Chesapeake cuisine, the shrimp holds undisputed sway further south. This section of the book is therefore heavily weighted with shrimp recipes. It also reflects one other new factor, the importance of soul food and the culinary influence of the black people to whom it belongs. Only in the south, where climatic conditions and food resources are comparable with those of Africa, could this influence flower.