15 Foods Every Georgian Craves When They Leave Georgia
By Lisa Sammons|Published August 10, 2022
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Lisa Sammons
Author
Lisa loves animals and has dogs, rats, cats, guinea pigs, and snakes. She is passionate about animal rescue and live music - traveling across the country to see a favorite band is a pretty regular occurrence! Being out hiking in the woods enjoying the scenery with her beloved dogs is another favorite hobby, and also checking out the Pokemon Go scene in whatever city she happens to be in at any given time (coffee and dog leash in hand). You can reach Lisa at lsammons@onlyinyourstate.com
Nowadays, you can get pretty much any type of food you like anywhere you like. Food is shipped all over the country, and even the globe, and the internet has spread regional recipes all over the place, so no matter where you are, you can enjoy delightful foods that not too long ago were only available in particular areas of the world. With all that being said, there are some foods that just seem to taste better when they’re where they come from. We don’t know what it is, but Southern cooking just tastes more authentic when it’s eaten in the South. And that goes doubly true for foods that are closely associated with Georgia. Here are a few foods in Georgia that anyone who leaves the state craves upon returning home:
The origins of Brunswick stew are actually hotly-contested, but of course we know it was made in Georgia! If you visit the town of Brunswick, you can see the 25-gallon pot where (allegedly) the first Brunswick stew was cooked back in 1898.
Whether you pick them up from a roadside stand or an old-fashioned general store like Sunrise Grocery, there's no better summer treat than boiled peanuts!
These delectable little morsels smell as good as they taste. There are actually several River Street Sweets locations now throughout the country, but if you ask us, they taste best from the original spot on River Street.
6. Chicken fingers and spuds from Spanky's in Savannah
The history is surprisingly fuzzy on this dish, but it's likely that Spanky's was one of the first restaurants in the country to serve up chicken fingers. Don't skip out on the spuds, though! These deep-fried potatoes are just as delicious.
Cornbread was actually first made by Native Americans, but it's so heavily entrenched in Southern cuisine now that it's tough to imagine it as anything other than an a good old-fashioned Southern side.
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9. Fried green tomatoes from the Whistle Stop Cafe in Juliette
Did you know that the Whistle Stop Cafe that was built in small-town Georgia for the filming of the 1991 classic "Fried Green Tomatoes" is still in existence today? You can pick up unripe fried tomatoes there that are just as tasty as you'd imagine.
The Vortex is famous for having some of the most delicious (and biggest) burgers in Georgia. You can get a good burger in a lot of places, but their oversized monstrosities are pretty special and definitely unique to our state.
Did you know Vidalia onions are the official vegetable of Georgia? By law, only onions grown in the area around the city of Vidalia can be sold with the name. Due to the low sulfur content, they are sweeter than most other onion varieties.
Collards are often cooked with ham hocks or fatback, and all Georgians know you've got to eat them with black-eyed peas on New Year's Day for good luck!
