Georgia and the Beginning of Locavorism: 1913
When did people in the United States take up the conviction that it was beneficial to consume the foods produced by one’s region and community and to act upon it by choice? Such a path presumes a few things: that a region has a distinct identity and set of characteristic productions; that one has choice in the matters of what can consumer (that there are imported or other foods available and that one is not compelled by religious or cultural mandates about what one must eat); and that one’s locale is diverse enough and fertile enough to supply a good deal of what needs in the way of nutrition to made such a path thinkable. From the centennial exhibition in 1876 onward, national and international exhibitions took place that showcased the products of states or regions. (Remember “Southern Cooking” only emerges as a public offering in a restaurant at an eatery at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia.) Yet in no case are these showcases accompanied by a campaign within the showcasing state to choose the products on display exclusively. Let me suggest a time and place when and where American locavorism began: Georgia in 1913.
In autumn of 1913 C. J. Haden, president of the Georgia State Chamber of Commerce, announced that on November 18, 1913, “in every county there shall be served at least one public dinner at which only Georgia products shall be eaten. “ It would be held simultaneously in the evening of the 18th. Menus for the banquets would be judged by a group of Georgia Hoteliers and prizes of $10 dispensed to exemplary menus. This most successful of early twentieth-century booster campaigns arose out of a welter of purposes. Groceries were assuming the national stocking and placelessness of product that had characterized the mercantile store; this was an opportunity to project local products on a national stage.
Campaign Goals:
1. Publication of the lists of products and menus might educate Georgia citizens of the best things in other parts of the state.
2. The feasts would not only demonstrate of the self-sufficiency of the state, but of individual counties.
3. A spirit of rivalry and emulation would stimulate towns and counties to improve their offerings and be more imaginative in their projection of their own products and identity.
“The idea originated from a statement in an official publication of the Georgia department of agriculture to the effect, that if a wall should be constructed around the state of Georgia, its present population and ten million of other citizens would be able to live in comfort on Georgia products alone.”
Little did Haden expect the enthusiasm with which the initiative would be embraced. Six days after announcing the initiative, the Atlanta Hotelmen’s Association announced it would spearhead an effort to have all 300 hotels in the state serve a Georgia Products Dinner. To assist, it published two template menus that hotels could adjust to incorporate locally available item—one for big cities, one for towns. This was the recommendation for “Small Hotels”:
Vegetable Soup
Baker trout
Chip potatoes
Young onions—Mixed pickles
Radishes
Jenny Lynn Pan Cakes
Roast Young Pig—Apple Sauce
Baked O’Possum with Georgia Yams.
Mashed Turnips—boiled Potatoes.
Cornfield peas—salt pork
Cold Slaw
Cold Meats
Roasts Beef—Tongue—Ham
Georgia Corn Pone—Buttermilk Biscuit
Boiled Custard—Pumpkin Pie
Cheese—Crackers
Coffee.
Something more than cultural self-sufficiency shines from this menu. Indeed, the “menu mania” that seized the state in early November 1913 can be seen as a widespread communal fantasy about the splendor of one’s home table. It became a hedonistic kind of wish trading in which towns and counties, colleges and hotels, housewives and chefs vied to envision a feast that would stimulate more saliva in readers than that of rivals.
Menus began appearing in print in Georgia’s newspapers—submitted by home cooks, civic associations, and hotel chefs. Some twenty menus from seventy eight known county banquets survive. Approximately 20,000 citizens partook of the bounty. The surviving menus constitute the richest, most varied articulation of a state culinary repertoire from the first quarter of the twentieth century. This menu archive conveys a wealth of information about local tastes, civic interest in food processing, proportion of proteins to vegetables in celebratory feasts, and the degree to which baked goods are reckoned local.
The state as the most significant frame of locality had been an ingrained dimension of southern culinary self-understanding for nearly a century by 1913. The earliest cookbooks in the southern canon—Mary Randolph’s The Virginia Housewife , Letitia Bryan’s The Kentucky Housewife, and Sarah Rutledge’s The Carolina Housewife spoke to a state identity, not a southern. While agriculturist would invoke “the South” as the frame of their community as early as 1828, southern food only emerged as a coherent ideal during the Civil War. During Reconstruction it received validation in 1876’s Southern Food Pavilion, the only American regional food venue in the American Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. But the old state pride and state’s rights mentality did not evaporate. Virginia, Maryland, and South Carolina all generated a sequence of late 19th-century early 20th century compendia, none of which attempted any systematic effort to locality within the state. Admixtures of white nostalgia and ancestor worship characterized volumes such as Housekeeping in Old Virginia and M. L. Tyson’s Queen of the Kitchen, a Collection of ‘Old Maryland’ Family Receipts for Cooking. Little of this haze hangs over the Georgia menus where the only ancestor reference was mom, as in “mother used to make”. The Lost Cause has been forgotten, replace by Chamber of Commerce boosterism and ‘forward thinking.’
Indeed, what this project resembles is late twentieth century locavorism—the self-conscious campaign (rather than the unwitting tendency) to celebrate and consume something from ‘around here.’ There is a sense that locavorism may begin with this campaign in the South. It began in that part of the country that had the most problem with identifying with the nation—the south and the greatest practice in think on the level of state and locale.
Anyone conversant with the archive of American menus will notice one dimension of the Georgia menus particularly—the underdeveloped place of beverages in the meal. Athens has the most distinctive drinks: Huzzar Punch (a peach brandy soda water amalgam) and Bludwine, a cherry-flavored soft drink. The punch is the only hard liquor found in any of the menus. The commonest drinks were the quartet of milk, buttermilk, coffee, and tea found at most banquets where temperance characterized public events. That Georgia was largely a non-alcoholic state is attested by the specification that for desert The New Douglas Hotel would serve a “Prohibition Mince Pie” rather than the old fashioned liquored version. If champagne and claret typified the banquet beverages in the pre-Prohibition cities of the North, the only wines that appeared on the Georgia banquets were home made—scuppernong and blackberry wines. On menus where commercial millers of flour and refiners of cotton seed oil were referenced by name, the absence of any commercial brewer, vintner, or distiller signaled that the Chamber of Commerce had let it be known that doing so would be frowned upon. Houston County served raw cane juice. Though oranges and lemons grew in Georgia, neither orange juice nor lemonade had a following in 1913. Indeed the first Citrus Processing plant in the United States would not open until 1915 in Haines City, Florida. Instead of orange juice the native fruit rendered into juice was the persimmon. Non-alcoholic persimmon beer (think ginger beer for an analog) appeared on five menus.
If beverages constituted the strangest and most undeveloped dimension of the Georgia menus, the most familiar dimension is surely the ordering of the meals. The first course comprises oysters, terrapin stews, and/or vegetable soups. These are followed by relishes. Turkey, Pork, or Ham constitutes the first featured meat. There is then a parade of vegetables. If the feast is elaborate there will be a game course, or if more modest, ham. These may be followed by salads— salad, cole slaw, or ham salad. Eggs and corn pone come after. Finally, the desserts—pies, ice cream, and peach confections. There may be a finale of fruits and nuts, tea and coffee. This approximates the standard banquet order adapted by caterers from English and French service during the 19th century. The menus are thoroughly Americanized with menu French appearing only as a joke: “potatoes au naturel.” All of the preparers knew that “A la’s are not served in Georgia.”
What is the Georgia-most protein?—turkey appeared in all but four of menus. Pork is the second most prevalent (roasted or cured), with opossum with sweet potatoes rounding out the trio of signature dishes. Invariably the turkey is served with dressing, the constituents determined by locale—chestnuts in the uplands, sweet potatoes in the midlands, and oysters on the coast. The outlier was Savannah, which opted for chestnuts. Chicken appeared in multiple guises: soup, pie, salad, roasted, and creamed on twelve of the menus. Only two designated that it be fried. Terrapin appeared on five menus, turtle (yellow bellied slider) on two.
Beef appeared on half of the menus. Lamb on only two. It is not surprising that hotels featured beef, since long standing associations between hotels and steaks and roast beef rounds made them fixtures on bills of fare throughout the country.
There are surprising absences when it comes to game birds. Only the menu prepared by Macon’s mayor Bridges Smith and Sumter County included wild ducks; Savannah preferred wild Goose to wild ducks. Since the feast took place during the middle of November, being out of season was no excuse for the paucity.
Fish, too, appeared less often than might be expected. Baked trout was the most popular named variety. Catfish appeared on three menus. Bream appeared once. Two menus featured unnamed “baked fish.” No oceanic fishes, except shad, appeared on any menu; it appeared once. The menus suggest problems in transporting pelagic fish inland. One wonders whether the menus for McIntosh County or for Brunswick (neither have which survived) would have contained redfish or pompano. There is no shrimp, no Crab (perhaps somewhat past season), and no crawfish. If one were to identify the greatest transformation in Georgia cuisine in the past century, it would be the enormous expansion of seafood on the table statewide.
The glory of the Georgia menus are the vegetables—their profusion—their variety—their seasonality. Some dimensions of the vegetable tastes of Georgia were national. Potato chips (Saratoga chips), mashed potatoes, and boiled potatoes abound. Some dimensions were southern regional—the baked yams, candied sweet potatoes, and sweet potato pies. Of the other root vegetables, turnips held a special place. Turnip greens (sometimes designated salad) paired with ham, pork, or corn dumplings vied with collards as the most popular green. Turnip roots also enjoyed a strong following. One of the odder shifts in popular taste has been the drift away from the 19th-century savor for turnips to the relative indifference of the past sixty years. In 1914 a Savannah newspaper published recipes that countered the disappointment of “finding turnips cooked in the ordinary way inspid.” One wonders whether the problem was that the minty, peppery turnips that had been planted in the 19th century had given way to field crop varieties with more innocuous taste.
Onions, which appear on ten menus, divided evenly between new or green onions, eaten as a salad or relish, and boiled onions, often creamed or served in gravy, a traditional side dish for meats. The “new onions” were often paired with radishes, a three season crop in Georgia, and consumed at breakfast with butter and as a relish at dinner.
The Cushaw squash, the large baking squash that became important in the early 19th century South, appeared on five menus under its Georgia name, the Kershaw. It was baked, mashed, and made into a custard for pies. It remains a significant force in the mountain south today, although rivaled now in North George by the candy roaster, a Cherokee creation that became generally available in the later 1920s. Other varieties of squash (butternut on winter squash) appeared on two additional menus. Pumpkin appeared on five menus, invariably prepared in the form of pie.
Beans allowed local preferences to shine, some counties opting for butterbeans, others for snap with no geographic logic. Dublin proved rather adventurous in featuring the Catlin wax bean, a yellow snap bean distinctive for its waxy pod. Green peas, or garden peas, appeared on only three menus—but they were not in season; the tale would have been different if the banquets had been in April. More prevalent were field peas, with several varieties mentioned, and in one case, served at the same dinner—old field, crowder, black eyed, and the delicate white lady pea all received specific mention. Whether they were served in pea gravy cannot be determined.
Despite being completely out of season, the asparagus had such strong associations with banquets that it appeared on six menus. Three preparations were announced: boiled, cream, and peppered. The reputation of the asparagus produced by Ware and Houston counties was so great that two menus specified the locales. Artichokes, another banquet vegetable, appeared on a sole menu. Easting an off season asparagus was not impossible, given the long tradition of forcing them in green houses for Thanksgiving and Christmas availability. Artichokes, however, proved difficult to force.
One vegetable appearing on a solitary menu—eggplant—suffered the nadir of esteem in the period before World War 1. In the 19th century, this African diaspora vegetable, was fried, baked, stuffed, grilled, and pickled throughout Georgia and the South, known also as the guinea squash. They first appeared at market in the end of June and remained on produce stands well into autumn. Local superstitions held it to be a “brain food”. But the eggplant’s popularity began to nose dive in 1910 and would not revive until the latter half of the twentieth century.
Being out of season accounts for the paucity of okra on these menus. One gumbo and one plain okra appear. Since the plant had a long history of being dried and reconstituted for out of season stews and soups, its appearance in the gumbo does not raise eyebrows. But November is late for fresh pods, and it was a rare greenhouse that forced the plant for holiday use in November and December before World War I. There was, however, a robust industry in canned okra at this juncture, and the likelihood is that these supplied the material for the plain okra dish listed.
Another out of season vegetable had become a staple of Georgia canning—tomatoes—and they appear on eight menus. Yet over half of the mentions indicated that they appeared at the table fresh sliced, indicating that the greenhouses of the state were working diligently to force salad tomatoes for the holiday season table. The other fresh tomato preparation was the stuffed broiled tomato.
Yet of stuff vegetables, the green bell pepper reigned supreme. Four menus announce its presence, despite its being out of season. The most intriguing preparation? Sumter County’s version with minced veal.
Nine recipes called for steamed rice to be on the menu, and two specified Georgia rice in particular. These years before the war were the last years of rice planting for commerce in the Southeast. Carolina Gold Rice—once a staple of the coastal plantations—was succumbing in the national market to cheaper white rice produced in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. Indeed, the rice most commonly found in Georgia grocery stores in 1913 was probably not locally sourced. One wonders how many of the banquets pretended that they were serving a Georgia product when they serving their steaming platters of rice and gravy.
Richmond County was known for its cauliflowers, and mid-November would have been the tail end of the season. Three menus featured cauliflower in some form. Of the other brassicas, Brussels Sprouts appeared on one menu, although it was a bit early for them to be available, cooked cabbage appeared on four, and collards were omnipresent. Despite pockets of German settlement, there was no Salzburger sauerkraut listed on any bill of fare.
—-
1 “Georgia Products Day, Tuesday, Nov. 18,” Columbus Daily Enquirer (October 30, 1913), p. 7.
2 Ibid.
3 “Menus for Georgia Day,” Columbus Daily Enquirer (November 5, 1913), 1.
4 “Three Hundred at Macon’s Georgia Product Dinner,” Macon Telegraph (November 19, 1913), 1, 8.
5 “Thousands of Georgians Join in Celebrating Day,” Macon Telegraph (November 19, 1913), 2.
AMERICUS MENU
Turtle Terrapin Stew
Baker Trout
Turnips, Collards, Green Peppers, Snap beans, Tomatoes, Cabbage, Butter Beans, Beets
Boiled Onions
Eggplants
Opossum Potatoes
Creamed Potatoes Baker Kershaw
Turkey Chestnut Dressing
Hot Rolls
Mayhaw Jelly Scuppernongs
Rabbit Slice Country Ham
Green Peas on Lettuce Leaves
Roast Beef Mushrooms
Lamb Mutton
Cream Chicken
Baker Goose Quail
Asparagus on Toast
Sweet Peach Pickle Cucumber Pickle
Fig Preserves Watermelon Preserves
Pumpkin and Kershaw Pies
Sumter Syrup Pudding
Kershaw = Cushaw Squash, a large baking and pie squash.
Sumter Syrup Pudding = Steamed pudding using 1 ½ cups flour, 1 cup chopped suet, one cupful of cane syrup, ¼ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, and milk. Steamed for several hours.
ATHENS
MENU
Savannah River Oysters on Half Shell.
Hearts of Georgia Celery.
Puree of Georgia Vegetables and Croutons.
Dixie Mixed Pickle.
Broiled Tybee Island Spanish Mackerel a la Chatham.
Potatoes Oglethorpe.
Boiled Smoked Clarke County Ham with Turnip Greens.
Braized Madison County Opossum with Sweet Potatoes.
Isle of Hope Terrapin in Cases.
Elberta Peach Fritters. Red and Black Sauce.
Georgia Huzzar Punch.
Roast Oconee County Young Turkey
stuffed with Habersham County Chestnuts.
Mashed Madison County Potatoes.
Ware County Asparagus.
Green County Brussel Sprouts.
Richmond County Cauliflower.
Athens Lettuce and Tomato Salad.
Mount Airy Apples and Baxaroise.
Georgia Ice Cream.
Home-made Georgia Walnut Cake.
Bludwine, the drink that made Athens famous.
Elberta Peach Fritters—The distinctive freestone Georgia Peach bred from the Shanghai Honey Nectar Peach. These are sliced, sugared, and left to sit an hour, dipped in a batter of egg yolk, flour, and oil, and beaten egg whites, and fried in boiling fat.
Georgia Huzzar Punch—Apricot Brandy, Lemon peel, Tonic Water
Baxaroise—Bavarian Cream, a pastry cream thickened with gelatin
Georgia Walnut Cake—Two eggs beaten well, one cup of white sugar and two-thirds of a cup of sweet cream, one heaping teaspoonful of baking powder sifted with one and one-half cups of flour, a pinch of salt. Filling—Two thirds of a cup of walnut meats rolled, half a cup of white sugar, two-thirds of a cup of sour cream. Mix and spread between the layers. Macon Telegraph, 2-13-1911, p. 5
Bludwine—Carbonated cherry-flavored soft drink of the early 20th century invented in Watkinsville, Georgia.
ATLANTA
MENU
Puree of Tomato
Whipped Cream
White Plume Celery
Mixed Pickles (a la “Dixie” Company)
Barnesia Young Onions Salted Peanuts
Roast Young Turkey Chestnut Dressing
Creamed Potatoes (a la Barnesia)
Georgia Yams (a la Camp)
Baked Cornfield Ham (a la White Company”
Deviled Eggs Veal Croquettes.
Chicken Salad (Georgia Raised)
Georgia Beaten Biscuits (made by Mrs. John Marshall Slaton)
Tip Top Biscuits Uncle Sam Bread
Georgia Corn Pone
Neapolitan Ice Cream Georgia Muffin Cakes
Block’s Butter Wafers
Habersham Apples
Kamper’s Roasted Coffee
Valdes Cigars Elbertone Mineral Water
Norris’ Banquet Mints
(All bread served on this occasion made from Capitola Flour)
BARNESVILLE, KEMPER HOTEL
MENU
Dinner.
Georgia Chicken Soup.
Roast Pork and Turnip greens, Country Style.
Roast Beef with Brown Gravy.
Roast Turkey with Old-fashioned Dressing.
Cranberries Cream of Chicken.
‘Possum and ‘Tatoes, Old Style.
Shoestring Potatoes, Creamed Potatoes.
Combination salads White Onions.
Hot Rolls. Apple Tarts.
Candy Yams.
Ginger Cakes.
Sweet Milk Butter Milk.
Coffee. Tea.
Peach Gelatin with Whipped Cream.
Pound Cake.
Pecans and Walnuts.
Cigars. Cigarettes.
BIBB COUNTY
MENU
Bibb County Pecans.
Butter Radishes.
Bibb County Watercresse.
Ocmulgee Channel Cat a la Bibb County.
Fried Potatoes, Natural.
Roast Bibb County Turkey. Chestnut Dressing.
Bibb Yams.
Sugar Crowder. Mashed Potatoes.
Combination Salad.
Bibb County Pie and Sweet Cider.
Bibb County Smearcaises, a la Dutch.
Saltine Crackers.
Special Bibb County Coffee.
Sweet Milk.
Sugar Crowder—A brown, sweet tasting field pea; the pea itself is yellowish and globular.
Smearcaises—Spreadable Cheese, such as cream cheese, popular particularly in Germanic cultural areas. [Smearcase]
BRUNSWICK
Blythe Island Oysters on Half Shell
Mock Turtle Soup a ala Oglethorpe
Celery Salted Almonds Olives
Broiled Blue Fish, Lighthouse
Glynn Corn Bread
Julienne Potatoes
Baked O’possum
“B” for Brunswick Style Sweet Potatoes
Roast Glynn Count Turker
Chestnut Dressing
Cranberry Sauce
Georgia Peas in Cases
Asparagus au Beurre
Shrimp Salad, a la Board of Trade
White Way Ice Cream
Assorted Cake
Roquefort Cheese Georgia Crackers
Mt. Pleasant Oranges
Turtle River Grape Fruit
Fancy Bluff Bananas
Brunswick Cigars Cigarettes
CHATHAM COUNTY
MENU
Oysters on Halfshell
Brown Bread Sandwiches
Celery
Tomato Bisque Oyster Crackers
Dill Pickles or Olives
Cornmealed Trout Creole Sauce
Potato Chips
Braised Sweetbreads
Georgia Pork Ham, Apple Sauce
Candied Yams Steamed Rice
Scuppernong Punch
Charlotte Russe Pumpkin Pie
Sponge Cake Cheese
Pecan Nuts Dried Figs
Demi Tasse
Scuppernong Punch—No doubt a non-alcoholic mixture of scuppernong juice and carbonated water.
COLUMBUS, SPRINGER HOTEL
MENU
Savannah Oyster Cocktail Celery
Cream of Chicken, Atlanta
Prime Ribs of Beef, Brown Gravy,
Georgia Raised
Roast Young Georgia Turkey with Oyster Dressing a la Macon
Boiled Turnips, Georgia Style
Spinach with Egg, ‘Munro’ Farm
‘Sho’ Nuff’ Potato Chips. Columbus Grown and Made
Georgia Candied Yams, Nankapoo
Lettuce and Tomato Salad, Augusta
Georgia Product Ice Cream ‘Enough Said’
With Everidge’s Mixed Cakes
Coffee Roasted in Columbus by Rutledge
Cheese Crackers
Nankapoo—locale near Columbus, GA
Everidge’s Mixed Cakes—a variety drawn from the stock of J. B. Everidge’s Bakery in Columbus. They were known of chocolate and fruit cakes particularly.
Rutledge—Of the Shield Coffee Company in Columbus.
DALTON
MENU
Chicken Salad
Beaten Biscuits and Brown Gravy
Georgia Light Bread and Rolls
Georgia Celery
Roast Turkey with chestnut and oyster dressing
Possum and Georgia Yams
DECATUR, DEKALB COUNTY
MENU
DeKalb County Cider
‘Panthersville’ Turkey, Chestnut Dressing
‘Peavine Creek’ Celery
“Druid Hill” Sause
“Ingleside” Chipped Ham
“Agnes Scott” Sandwiches
“Donald Fraser” Beaten Biscuit
“East Lake” creamed Oysters in Tymbols
“Silver Lake” Ice Cream
“Brookhaven” Cake
“Decatur Spirit” Coffee
DOOLY COUNTY
MENU
First Course: Vegetable Soup, croutons.
Second course: Stuffed baked trout, potato balls, Georgia hoecake.
Third Course: Scuppernong wine, corn salad, stuffed peppers, cold slaw, quince jelly, peach pickle, barbecued pig, candied Dooly yams, roast turkey, fall turnip salad.
Fourth Course: Chicken salad, Bread sticks.
Fifth Course: Sunderlin Pudding, Wine Sauce, Whip Cream, Georgia Bell Peaches.
Sixth Course: Rebel Coffee. Smear Case and Crackers.
Turnip Salad = Turnip Greens
DOUGLAS, NEW DOUGLAS HOTEL
MENU
Savannah Oyster Cocktail
Essence of Tomato Croutons
Young Onions Cheese Sticks
Broiled Gaskin Spring Trout.
Potatoes Nellie.
Chicken Pot Pie with Dumplings.
Spareribs and Collards
Corn Pone
Roast Turkey, With Dressing
Roast Leg of Veal
Boiled Potatoes Steamed Georgia Rice
Turnip Greens Candied Yams
Old Field Peas
Prohibition Mince Pie
Coffee County Pecans Grape Jelly
Persimmon Punch
Home-made Pound Cake.
DUBLIN
MENU
Okra Gumbo, Harrison.
Radford Radishes and Young Onions.
India Relish and Tomato Catsup, a la Baum.
Oconee Channel Catfish, fried in Cotton Seed Oil.
Pig Jowl with Black-eyed Peas.
Fried Hominy.
Braised Veal, Cornpone Garnish.
Barbecued Shoat and Benny Seed Fritters.
Laurens County Beef, the Ribs Roasted.
Cheek’s Farm New Potatoes in Rice Butter.
Young Turkey Roasted, Stuffed with Yellow Yams.
Baum Apple Jelly.
Pope’s Mill Corn Bread.
Stinson Buttermilk.
Catlin Waxed Beans. Stewed Tomatoes.
Collard Greens.
Mashed Kershaw.
Lettuce Salad, Home Dressing.
‘Possum and ‘Taters.
Laurens Squab on Eggbread Toast.
Crackling Bread and Dublin Ginger Ale.
Sweet Potato Pudding, Hooks Fashion.
New Dublin Ice Cream—It’s Peach
With Assorted Cakes—Same Brand.
Pope’s Graham Crackers and Laurens County Syrup.
Persimmon Beer.
Crack your own Pecans, Black Walnuts and Hickory Nuts.
Preserved Peaches, Melon Rinds, Blackberry Jam.
Anderson Cigars.
FLOYD COUNTY
MENU
Oyster Soup
Salad of Lettuce, Celery, Tomato, Bell Pepper, Radish
Pickled Cucumber, Cabbage, Hot Pepper, Bell Pepper, Melon Rind
Vegetables
Boiled Cabbage, Turnip Greens, Beans,
Peas, Spinach, Butter Beans, Okra,
Turnips, Swiss Chard, Collards,
Squash, Rice, Kershaw, Creamed Asparagus,
Beets, Parsnips, Carrots, Onions, Baked Sweet Potatoes.
Irish Potatoes. Egg Plant.
Baked Fish
Barbecued Meats
Beef. Lamb. Kid. Pork. Rabbits. Possum
Mint-Parsley
Pies, Chicken, Squirrel, Squab, Quail
Bread
Boston Brown, Corn Bread, Biscuits
Jelly
Apple, Plum, Maypop, Blackberry.
Dewberry, Huckleberry, Scuppernong, Muscadine
Pies
Apples, Blackberry, Dewberry, Peach, Pumpkin, Sweet Potato, Cherry, Irish Potato
Preserves
Peach, Apple, Plum Pear, Cherry, Muscadine, Fig, Scuppernong
Watermelon Rind
Soft Gingerbread of Syrup
Brown Bread of Sorghum.
HOUSTON COUNTY
MENU
Thunderbolt Oyster Stew.
Block’s Oysterette Crackers Pickles
Houston County Pork George Barbecue
Say Red Rock (Atlanta, GA) Say it Plain
Houston County Baked Turkey with Dressing
Chicken Salad Colde Slaw
Candied Yellow Yams
(Raised by A. J. Evans Houston county)
Cracked Houston County Pecans
Houston County Salted Peanuts
Elberta Peaches (canned by W. L. Houser)
Beaten Biscuit (made from ‘Lilly of the Valley’ flour: wheat raised in Houston by W. H. Harris and ground at the Fort Valley Roller Mills)
Houston County Sugar Cane Juice
Bread from Houston County Wheat
(raised by A. J. Houser and ground at his mill)
Hot Waffles, with Country Butter and Houston County Raised Syrup
LAVONIA
MENU
Georgia Apple Cider.
Salted Peanuts
Oyster Cocktail Crackers
Celery Home Made Pickles
Turkey
Green Peas Tomatoes
Opossum and Sweet Potatoes Lavonia Style
Franklin County Wheat Biscuits
Lavonia Raised Collards
Corn Bread a la Franklin County
Baked Apples Boiled Country Ham
Country Corn Lye Hominy
Stuffed Eggs Light Bread
Fruit Salad Chicken Salad
Crackers
Pumpkin Pie and Potato Custard (Like Mother Used to Make)
Cottage Cheese
Elberta Peach Cream Assorted Cakes
Persimmon Beer (Unfermented)
Sassafras Tea Rye Coffee
MACON, MERCER UNIVERSITY
MENU
Soup
Barbecue of Screven County Pig
Steamed Rice with Gravy
Candied Yams Georgia Style
Celery Pickles
Brunswick Stew
Potato Salad Mayonnaise Dressing
Home Grown Radishes Young Onions
Sears’ Luxury Bread
Canned Elbertas Assorted Cakes
Coffee
MACON, WESLEYAN COLLEGE MENU
Oysters Brunswick Stew
Carrol County Baked Oppossum
Served with Jasper Yellow Yams and Steamed Rice from Chatham.
Celery from Houston
Jones County Spareribs, Country Style
Creamed Potatoes, Butts County
White Turnips from Twiggs County
Corn Sticks
Monroe Juliette Meal
Bibb County Tomatoes served with Salad Oil Mayonnaise
Cotton Seed Product, Savannah, Ga.
Crisp Lettuce from Bibb
New Onions and Radishes Stonedge Farm
Spalding County Frost-Bitten Persimmons
and Collards from Jasper
Finger Rolls
Henry County Flour
Butter from Bibb
Sumter, GA., Cane Syrup
Apples from the Hills of North Georgia
Flournoy Dairy Pure Cream
Frozen with Macon Cream
Patty Pan-Cakes
MACON, MAYOR BRIDGES SMITH’S MENU
Soups—Vegetable, mixed; potlicker, pealicker; diamond-backed Savannah Terrapin, Brunswick stew; catfish chowder.
Relishes—Hoss radish; Georgia pickles.
Meats—Ribs of wire-grass raised beef; middle Georgia mutton; mint sauce; Kid, billy and nanny; Quitman county ham; roast pig, a la Louis Schelbo; barbecued pig, a la Dill Young; ‘possum with taters on the side in gravy; smoked country sausage; spareribs; blackbone, with dumplings.
Fish—Ocmulgee channel cats, fried; Ogeechee shad, baked; Satilla river bream; Thunderbolt oysters.
Game—Glynn county deer; south Georgia wild turkeys; down-the-river ducks; partridges; rice birds.
Vegetables—Frost-nipped collards with corndodgers; turnip greens with bacon; Houston county asparagus; Bibb county celery; sliced tomatoes; yaller yams, nigger chokers and Spanish sweet potatoes; Irish potatoes; squashes, snap beans, greasy with smoked bacon grease; lady-crowder and black-eyed peas.
Specials—Chicken pie, Mrs. Ben Moore style fried yaller-legged chickens; roast turkey stuffed with Brunswick oysters; souse, with pepper vinegar.
Breads-Salt-rising loaf; beaten biscuits; corn-pone; hoecake; cracklin’ bread.
Pastry—‘Tater custard pie, like mother used to make; apple turnovers, rights and lefts; blackberry dumplings, with butter sauce; old style ice cream, in big saucers.
Drinks—El-beer, Georgia style; persimmon beer; blackberry wine; unfermented cane juice; syllabub; waters of all kinds.
Fruits-Rabun county paw paws; Decatur county oranges, Subers variety; persimmons.
Nuts—South Georgia pecans; black walnuts; hickory nuts; scaly0barks; chestnuts; chinquapins; pinders; chufas.
Nibblers—Georgia crackers; hot head cheese; salted peanuts.
MILLIDGEVILLE, GEORGIA NORMAL COLLEGE
Prize Menu $10
MENU
Planned for any Georgia family of ordinary means.
Breakfast: Baked apples with cream, country sausage, hominy, toasted light bread or buttermilk biscuit, waffles with Georgia cane syrup, milk or coffee.
Dinner: Savannah oyster soup, fried chicken, apple jelly, rice with gravy, candied sweet potatoes, celery, scalloped tomatoes, light rolls, crackling bread, Elberta peach pie, whipped cream, coffee, buttermilk.
Supper: Country ham, hominy, Georgia fried potatoes (Irish), Chile sauce, hot soda biscuit, blackberry jam or fig preserves, tea.
BANQUET MENU
Clear Soup, croutons, salted pecans,
Celery, baked trout with Tartar sauce,
Saratoga chips. roast turkey garnished with parsley, oyster stuffing,
rice, candied sweet potatoes, creamed asparagus (grown and canned in Georgia),
Hot rolls, beaten biscuit, crabapple jelly, peach pickle,
Rabun county apple salad on lettuce, mayonnaise made with cottonseed oil,
Frozen custard, small Angel cakes, iced.
Nuts—Black walnuts, scaly barks, salted peanuts, chestnuts.
Fruits—Pears, apples, pomegranates, persimmons.
Black coffee, home-made candies.
ROME
MENU
Vegetable Soup
Home grown beef and vegetables
Endive and green pepper Salad and mayonnaise dressing
Roast beef, au jus
O’possum roti
Baked Sweet potatoes
Irish potatoes au natural
Turnip greens with corn dumplings
Home raised smoked bacon
Pone corn bread
Sweet pickled peaches
Green corn Butterbeans
Lettuce Young Onions
Young radish
Ginger cake stuffed with black walnut goodies
Salted peanuts
Grated sweet potato custard front
Butter Milk Sweet Milk
Persimmon beer au possem
SAVANNAH MENU
Chatham County Oyster Cocktail, or Grape Fruit
Turtle Soup Tomato Bouillon
Terrapin Stew
Sweet Peach Pickles, Celery, Mixed Pickles
Baked Trout, (Georgia) Corn Pone Dressed
Salted Peanuts
Roast Turkey (Georgia) Chestnut Stuffing
Georgia Rice Giblet Gravy
Boiled 9Brooks County) Ham
Prime Rib of Roast Beef
Roast Goose, White Potato Dressing
Opossum, Baked Sweet Potatoes,
Rabbits Roast Pork
Irby Turnips, Mashed (Bartow County)
Roast Chicken Quail
(Lowndes County Mayhaw Jelly)
Creamed Onions
Corn Kershaw, Baked in Shell
String Beans
Artichokes, Asparagus and Pepper
Salads
Lettuce with Cream Dressing
Cold Slaw Buttered Beets
Sliced Tomatoes
Apple, Pumpkin, and Sweet Potato Pie
or Potato Pone
Butter Sauce
Peach of Strawberry Ice Cream
Pound Cake John B. Gordon Cake
Nunnally’s or Block’s Crackers
Pecans English and Black Walnuts
Apples
SUMTER COUNTY MENU
Soup
Clear Amber Soup, Croutons Celery
Fish
Broiled brook trout, Butter-Parsley Sauce
Corn Meal Muffins, Scalloped Irish Potatoes, Radishes.
Entrees
Baked bell peppers, stuffed with minced veal. Relish-Salted Peanuts.
Meats
Roast turkey, Mayhaw Gilbert Gravy
Braised beef with carrots.
Green tomato, cabbage and onions, chow-chow, canned yams-hominy,
Puff egg plant fritters, cauliflowers with cream sauce.
Game
Smothered wild duck. Apple Sauce. Hot biscuit.
Salad
Lettuce and tomato salad, French dressing made with Sumter County oil and vinegar
Desserts
Pumpkin pie, Canned Elberta peaches.
Frosted whipped cream. Layer cake with caramel and black walnut filling
Fruits
Apples,, Japanese Persimmons, butter-milk, sweet milk
TATTNALL COUNTY MENU
Fruit Cocktail
Creamed Tomato Soup Croutons
Cucumber Baskets Sassafras Teas
Bread Turnips
Baked Turkey with Dressing
Chicken Pie Beef Loaf
Baked Georgia Yams
Stuffed Peppers Stuffed Tomatoes
Butter
Southern Corn Bread Bread
Chicken Salad
Potato Salad Apple and Peanut Salad
Ham and Egg Sandwiches
Cucumber Pickles
Grape Juice
Creamed Ice Cream Pound Cake
6 “Macon Folks Eat Georgia Products,” Macon Telegraph (November 18, 1913), 10.
7 “Just a Few Turnips,” Savannah Tribune (February 28, 1914), 3.
TIFTON Myron Hotel MENU
Salted Peanuts
Georgia Vegetable Soup
Tifton County Tomatoes Homeraised Radishes
Lettuce
Chow Chow Pickles Sweet Cucumber Pickles
Boiled Blue Stem Collards, smoked Bacon
Hoe-cake Corn Bread Butter Milk
Roast Country Turkey, Sage Stuffing, Blackberry Jelly
Cut of Native Beef with brown potatoes and gravy
Backbone Stew with Bread dumplings
Watermelon Rind Preserves
New Irish Potatoes Roasted Yams in Ashes
Rome-raised String Beans White-eyed Peas
Old Fashion Potato Salad
Boiled Custard Ice Cream
Grandmother’s Pound Cake
Fruit Cake
Pumpkin Custard Pie Peach Cobbler
Home-baked Light Bread Spider-cooked Biscuits
Cream Cheese Crackers
Mint Tea Black Tea
Sweet Milk