Yummy! Neda and I went to Louisiana in the southern United States to EAT as much southern food as we could! Of course, we couldn't just eat fried chicken -- we wanted to try different kinds of foods. Some of the food sounded really delicious, and some of it sounded awful. But we promised to be brave and try many different foods. Guess what? Some of the foods we thought we wouldn't like we actually ended up liking a lot!

What is southern food? Besides fried chicken, examples of southern food are cornbread, gumbo, jambalaya, bread pudding, and sweet tea. There's also greens and hog stomach salad, and brains and eggs all mixed together! Part of Louisiana is right next to a bay, so a lot of people eat crawfish and shrimp. Okra is another southern food. It is a thin, green vegetable that looks like a large, hard green bean. Southerners fry okra in batter (it looks like a French fry) or put it in gumbo, a spicy soup-stew. Gumbo also has oysters, sausage, and chicken in it. It may sound bad to some of you, but it's really very good.

Southern food was first made by slaves during the Civil War, in the 1800s. Slaves worked on large plantations in the South. They were very poor and needed to use every scrap of food in their cooking. Nothing went to waste. If they cooked a pig, they would eat the snout and the feet and the ears, as well as the rest of the animal. But to make the food taste good, they would cook it in a stew with vegetables (gumbo) or rice and lots of spices and seasonings (jumbalaya). By the time the stew was ready to eat, you wouldn't know you were eating a foot or an ear! You would be hungry and it would taste great! They would also make sweet-potato biscuits and banana nut cakes for dessert.

If you ever get a chance to try southern food - eat it! You'll be eating a piece of America's history!

Rebecca