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The Eats of Georgia - It's more than BBQ, Peaches, & Peanuts!
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Mar 24, 2025
Georgia has an incredible array of food for travelers to enjoy from southern staples like collard greens, fried chicken, and BBQ to more Georgian fine eating like Low Country Boils, Oysters, and Coca-Cola. What to eat when you visit Atlanta, Savannah, Georgia, and anywhere in between in the Peach state. Filmed in Savannah, Georgia Copyright Mark Wolters 2022 Learn how to plan your travels like we do with our Travel Planning 101 Course: https://www.brighttrip.com/woltersworld Visit Our Amazon Store for Drinkware, cookingware, travel gear, and other necessities of life. http://www.amazon.com/shop/woltersworld Follow Jocelyn on Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/jocelynwoltersworld Follow Simply Jocelyn on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Simply-Jocelyn-A-Globally-Inspired-Life-100312851709273/ Follow Our Shorts Channel for quick travel tips: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmSIWRrLCcqamLlTEEBLFLA
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Hey, I'm Jocelyn, and today we're in Savannah, and so I'm going to do the Eats of Georgia
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And first on my list is Low Country Boil. Low Country Boil is just potatoes and corn and shrimp
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and andouille sausage, and it's all boiled up with a whole bunch of Old Bay seasoning
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and then you drain it and you dump it out on newspapers or whatever, thrown out on a table
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and you eat it with your hands. And that is whether you're wearing Armani or cut-off shorts
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It doesn't matter if that's how we eat it in the South. And since we're in Savannah, we're going to have to talk about shrimp because there is
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a lot of shrimp that comes from Georgia. And it is in all its forms, just like Forrest Gump said
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We've got shrimp cakes. We've got fried shrimp. We've got boiled shrimp at all
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It's very many forms. And another wonderful thing that we have in many forms is grits
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Grits are not just something that you have for breakfast. You've got cheese grits
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You've got eggs on top of your grits. You've got shrimp and grits. So if you find any of those things on a menu, you should absolutely have them because every
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one will be just a little bit different. Of course, you can't talk about food in Georgia without talking about fried chicken
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And some of the best fried chicken places you're ever going to find are these little
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tiny hole-in-the-wall places where mom and pop are in the back, literally battering up
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and frying that chicken for you. And those are honestly my best favorite places to have chicken outside of mama's kitchen
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Along with fried chicken, there's chicken and waffles, which is basically just a waffle with fried chicken on top
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It's not my favorite thing, but it's definitely something that you have all over the state of Georgia
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When you're on the coast, you'll have a lot of oyster roast. Typically, in my experience, we often have them like around New Year's is a big celebratory thing outside
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You just get bags and bags full of oysters and they toss them on the fire until they pop
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And we all sit there and open them and slurp it up and make our own sausage
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You got spicy sauce and not so spicy sauce. But, oh, my gosh, an oyster roast is a great experience
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And, man, I've had oyster roasts with lots of different types of people all over the place
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And every one of them was just a wonderful experience and one that I wouldn't hope that anyone that visits Georgia gets the opportunity to have
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So, obviously, you cannot talk about any southern place or, you know
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Well, there's barbecue all over the country, but like Georgia barbecue is mainly pork based
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Typically, the sauce is going to be like ketchup or tomato based kind of sauce
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Usually it's pretty sweet. But you know the bigger thing is just that you have to have pork and not so much beef when you in Georgia Kind of like those fried chicken places the best barbecue joints are the ones on the side of the road that are very unassuming They kind of look like a dump
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That's always the best place where you're going to find barbecue. And honestly, that's not just in Georgia
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That's all over the South. You're just going to find the very best pork, you know
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that's just been cooked and slow roasted all day, just smoked to perfection
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Those are the places, you know, actually follow your nose. When you smell that smoke, you know that they're doing it right
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So one of those sides that you're going to find all over Georgia is Brunswick stew. Brunswick stew can vary by person and also by restaurant
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But generally speaking, it's made with pork. There's corn, there's onions, there's butter beans
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It's all kind of stewed together with some tomatoes and stuff. I mean, it's stew
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You know, what else do you want? But it's a great hearty side that you should totally have while you're here
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And, you know, sometimes you'll find that it's not just pork. It might be venison or something else
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I think that traditionally it was sort of whatever you hunted, that was the meat that
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went into the stew. And then there's collard greens. Y'all, I love collard greens
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Just simmered with a ham hock or maybe some fat back or even oxtail can go in there or
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pig's tail, you know. But like, I feel like it really has to have pork in it to be right
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But if you're a vegetarian, you can totally find collard greens that don't have pork in it
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I'm just not going to say it's quite as good. Another wonderful side is okra
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And okra is another one of those things they do in all different forms. You can get it roasted
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You can get it baked. You can get it fried. You can get it pickled. I love it pickled
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Pickled and fried. Those are kind of my favorites. And it does get a little slimy inside
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And those little seeds you can snap down on them. I don't know. It's a very satisfying feel in your mouth
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But I absolutely love okra. And I think that you will too when you're in Georgia
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And then of course, there's mac and cheese. And we're not talking about blue box mac and cheese, although that's just fine and dandy
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But mac and cheese here is like, yeah, it is something else
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It is like there is care taken when making it. Usually there's a little bit of flour crusted on top, extra cheese baked on it
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And the sauce that's in the middle is like several kinds of cheese put together
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I have a really great recipe for that that I absolutely love that I got while I was living
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down here in Savannah. And mac and cheese is just constantly on every table all the time
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And then there are those staples like deviled eggs, pimento cheese, fried green tomatoes
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and all of those can be sides, but they can also be starters. Often we go to people houses and have cocktails and things and those kind of things will be out you know like little things with pimento cheese And that just pimentos a little bit of mayonnaise and usually like an extra sharp cheddar that been shredded And it all just kind of mixed up Or you have deviled eggs on the side and you just kind
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of snack on those while you're having drinks before dinner. When you go get fried green tomatoes
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if you're sitting in a restaurant and you see fried green tomatoes that come out and they're really thin, do not get fried green tomatoes there. Fried green tomatoes need to be thick
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They need to be lightly coated. And when you bite into them, they should still be a little bit crispy
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They should not be all soggy and limp. They should really like hold their own
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Those are the very best fried green tomatoes. And yes, they're just tomatoes that have not ripened
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It's not a special kind of tomato. It's just an unripe tomato that you slice up nice and thick and battered a little bit
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And some people do flour kind of stuff and other people do like a cornbread mix, all
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sorts of different ways to make that too. And then there's, of course, potato salad and red beans and
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rice. Both are really self-explanatory and both are on every menu. You can find them at every
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barbecue joint. You can find them at almost every decent Southern restaurant too. And then we got to
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talk about the breads. Basically, hoe cakes, cornbread, and biscuits. And they're incredible
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They're wonderful things. And we have them all the time at every meal
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And biscuits can come at night. They can come during the day. They're just, they're all the time
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Biscuits are, again, one of those things that are like, have a lot of different forms
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You might have them with gravy. You might have them with sausage or with eggs or just some with cheese or maybe with some
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honey or some butter, like any combination of those things together. So biscuits are like all the time
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Another great snack that I really love are boiled peanuts. Boiled peanuts are typically boiled in like maybe some hot sauce or just some hot water
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But if you can ever find them made with pot liquor, those are the very best boiled peanuts
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Pot liquor is literally just the liquid. After you've cooked your collard greens, you just cook all your raw green peanuts in that
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Add some salt. Maybe not too much because there's usually already a lot from that collard green juice that's in there
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Oh my gosh. And as my friend says, it'll make you slap your mama
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And then we've got desserts. Pecan pie, of course, obviously, like big gelatinous thing of like sugary goodness with
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a whole bunch of pecans on top. And there are lots of pecan farms around Georgia and you'll find it all over the place
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Also, of course, peanuts that aren't boiled. There's just, you know, we make a lot of peanuts in this state
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And then there are pralines and they are just sugary goodness with pecans in them And you find all sorts of them And if you are ever able like if you not like really in Georgia but you just happen to stop at the Atlanta airport at Hartsville and you see
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the Savannah Candy Kitchen, they are known for the pralines. So go in, stop and get a couple of those
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before you make your next flight. Another dessert that you'll find all over the place, but also is
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sometimes just a side, not necessarily dessert, is banana pudding. And you'll find all different
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kinds of pudding, of course, but banana pudding is really indicative of Georgia foods. And I love
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really good banana pudding. And it's kind of hard to find a really excellent one in those fancy
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restaurants, but it's another one of those things you're going to find in those hole in the wall
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great fried chicken places or barbecue joints. And I really love to just finish my meal with that
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Even if it's coming as a side, you just kind of eat that one last because the sugar, right
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And then, of course, you can't talk about the peach state without talking about peach cobbler
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Also, peach muffins and peach this and peach that, peach ice cream, whatever
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All sorts of peach things. But my favorite is peach cobbler. And you'll find all different iterations
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Like, you know, some people make it really wet and gooey and other people like it really dry with huge pieces of like almost halves of peaches inside
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inside with crunchy on top. But wherever you find peach cobbler, I can guarantee you those peaches
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are probably from Georgia and are probably really good and fresh. And then, of course, we'll finish
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off with the drinks. Obviously, sweet tea is one of them. And, you know, sweet tea should be really
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good, strong, dark tea that has steeped for a long time. And it's got ridiculous amounts of sugar
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because that's just, I mean, that's just what sweet tea is. People come down and they come to
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Georgia or anywhere in the South and they're like, it's too much sugar. It's not. It's never
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too much sugar when it comes to sweet tea. It's just, it's syrupy almost. And I love it. And I
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really miss it when I'm not here. And of course, then there's also sweet water beer. And sweet
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water beer you can get all over the country. I mean, I get it in Illinois. I've had it in New
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York. I've had it in Connecticut. Sweet water beer is really great. And it is made in Atlanta
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Georgia. The other drink that is made in Atlanta, Georgia is Coca-Cola. And you can get that
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literally everywhere in the world. I have had it on every continent in the entire world
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And it's a little different everywhere, but you should obviously try classic Coca-Cola when you're
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in the state of Georgia. So those are my eats of Georgia. And I know there are about a million more
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because the foodways of Georgia are so very rich. So after you watch this, go ahead and write down
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some of your other favorite things from Georgia too. Y'all have a great day
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Bye
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