Southern Cooking
The Food Of The Rest Of The Former Confederacy
Geographically, New Orleans is clearly part of The Old South. Culturally and culinarily, however, it has always been an island. We don't talk with a Southern accent, we don't drink mint juleps, we don't make red-eye gravy, cornpone, or smothered pork chops. (Not often, anyway.) Creole and Cajun cooking show few similarities with the food of, say, the Carolinas. Or even the food of north Louisiana. We have adopted some dishes from our neighbors in the rest of the Southeast--we certainly like grits, for example--but not a lot of them.
This is why very few Southern-style restaurants have ever appeared in New Orleans. Even the very good ones that come seems to go sooner or later. (Iler Pope's excellent Mississippi Delta-style Cafe Atchafalaya was a great example.) At this writing, Southern food here is usually found sprinkled through menus that are predominantly Creole. Like these:
