About Regional Flavor
A state of tremendous culinary contrast, from the most gracious Old-South tea rooms and dress-up Sunday suppers to raffish barbecue parlors and cheap-eats diners with waitresses who call you Hon’. Georgia must-eats include chopped barbecued pork in Augusta or Atlanta (accompanied by either Brunswick stew or hash on rice), hand-pattied biscuits almost everywhere, and fried-chicken all-you-can-eat buffets.
Georgia Regional Specialties
Pot Likker
Pot likker is the spruce-green broth retrieved from the pot in which greens have been boiled. The greens – mustard, collard, turnip, dandelion – cook for hours, leeching vegetable goodness into the water and giving it a tonic punch like no other soup. Top it with cornbread crumbles, and you have a true Dixie delight.
Chopped Pork with Cracklins
There is memorable smoke-cooked pork throughout the state, but in Augusta you will find an old-time way of serving it – topped with crunchy cracklins. Described by Roadfood correspondent Chickenplucker as "pork candy," these crackly bits of fatty skin add immeasurable pleasure to smoky meat that is luxurious even before it gets sauced and cracklin'd.
Peach Ice Cream
There's something of a rivalry between Georgia and neighboring South Carolina regarding peaches. South Carolina produces more, but Georgians say theirs are better. We won't take sides in this debate, but we will tell you that peach ice cream in both states is a dish to detour for, especially in peach season from May through July.