Lowcountry cuisine

Lowcountry cuisine is the cooking traditionally associated with the Georgia and South Carolina Lowcountry. While it shares features with Southern cooking, its geography, economics, demographics, and culture pushed its culinary identity in a different direction from regions above the fall line. With its rich diversity of seafood from the coastal estuaries, its concentration of wealth in Charlestondn and Savannah, and a vibrant Caribbean cuisine and African cuisine influence, Lowcountry cooking has strong parallels with New Orleans and Cajun cuisines. But neither Charleston nor Savannah developed the enduring grand restaurant legacy that New Orleans did. And so they lacked a major resource that had helped define and promote Creole cuisine to the rest of the world.

Region

The true lowcountry stretches from South Carolina down the Georgia coast from Savannah to St. Mary's. The cuisine is most prevalent in Charleston, Beaufort, Savannah, Brunswick, and Saint Simon's Island. There is a difference of opinion as to what exactly the South Carolina Lowcountry encompasses. The term is most frequently used to describe the coastal area of South Carolina that stretches from Pawley's Island, South Carolina to the confluence of the Savannah River at the Georgia state line. More generous accounts argue that the region extends further north and west, including all of the Atlantic Coastal Plain of South Carolina. The geography is a critical factor in distinguishing the regions's culinary identity from interior areas of the South. The rich estuary system provides an abundance of shrimp, fish, crabs, and oysters that were not available to non-coastal regions prior to refrigeration. The marshlands of South Carolina also proved conducive to growing rice, and that grain became a major part of the everyday diet.

Foods that are traditionally part of Lowcountry cuisine

Appetizers, Soups, and Salads

* Benne-Oyster Soup
* Cooter Soup
* She-crab soup
* Sweet Potato & Crab Soup
* Okra Soup

Meat and Seafood

* Catfish Stew
* Lowcountry Boil
* Country Captain
* Frogmore Stew
* Shrimp and Grits
* Shrimp Kedgeree
* Oyster Roast
* Crab Crack

Rice

* Charleston Red Rice
* Perlau
* Salmon and Rice

ides

* Hoppin' John
* Fried Cabbage
* Baked Mac-n-Cheese

ee also

* Cuisine of the Southern United States
* Vertamae Grosvenor

References

* Taylor, John Martin. "Hoppin'John's Lowcountry Cooking". Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000.
* The Junior League of Charleston. "Charleston Receipts". Wimmer Brothers, 1993.