Southern cooking (US Part VIII)

When you are in the Southeast of the US, there are at least three different venues you should visit to try out authentic Southern cooking.... Of course, we tried those three;-)

One is Waffle House, which - as the name suggests - is known for its waffles. And they are indeed yummy! Anne Sofie is enjoying one with maple sirup in picture 1. The place also had a juke box with a listing of old and new country music. Fortunately, Carsten succeeded in finding some music that was a bit less 'country' than average...

The second place to hang out for 'some good ol' eating' is the favourite place of the locals. In Cartersville, that place is known as 'Doug's Place' (picture 2) named after the owner who used to work in the mine (where Raymond worked until he retired a couple of years ago). The guy thought that the area needed a place with proper country cooking and decided to open a restaurant. Supposedly, he had a slow start, since he set out to do all the cooking himself - without much experience, that is... These days, it is one of the most popular places to eat around Cartersville. And it sure is gooood! We tried out chicken, baked sweet potatoes, fried green tomatoes, okra, biscuits and hush puppies (kind of sweet corn bread) - and of course, it was all washed down with iced sweet tea:-)

A third place to go is the Cracker Barrel (picture 3), which is decorated like an old country store. The restaurants are located along the interstate, and serve good ol' country meals. We went there for a full Southern breakfast, which includes grits (porridge made of grounded corn; you either hate it or love it), eggs, bacon, fried apples, and - of course - biscuits (close to English scones but more salty) and gravy (filling white sauce). Shelby made sure that we tasted the corn bread as well... we did not need to eat much more that day!