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Traditional Food from Alabama Every Tourist Must Eat!
Aug 20, 2025
Whether you are going to Huntsville, Gulf Shores, Birmingham or any of the wonderful towns in Alabama there are some pretty amazing treats you should try in this Southern State from Alabamam White Sauce on the BBQ to southern staples you will eat well and eat a lot in Alabama. Filmed on the Gulf Coast of Alabama Copyright Mark Wolters 2024 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 there fellow travelers, Mark here, and today I want to talk about what you should eat when you
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come here to Alabama. And yes, Alabama does have great sandy beaches that you can enjoy
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We're here at Orange Beach, you got Gulf Shores, Alabama, right down that way. And the thing is, we're going to start talking about the food of Alabama. I think it's important
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we talk about the Gulf right over there and all the great stuff you can get from it
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And the most important food you need to eat in Alabama that's from the Gulf is the Gulf shrimp. It is fantastic. However you want to eat the shrimp
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you're gonna love it whether you want it grilled or boiled or fried or or whatever you're gonna
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love it the shrimp here is fantastic but my favorite way to have the shrimp when i'm in
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alabama it doesn't matter if i'm here on the coast or from in huddsville going to space camp with my
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kids is going and having the shrimp and grits that is a must yes it's a southern staple but here in
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alabama man with that fresh shrimp coming in you can't go wrong okay now no other sea thing you
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should have when you are here are actually oysters you can have which are fantastic you want to get
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them in season though so like during the summertime maybe not the best time to get the oysters but
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honestly if you get oysters when you are here whether they're on the half show or you get them cooked up in different ways so good a little chobroiled one an oyster roast if you can be a part
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of one of those fantastic okay but if you're a tourist coming to alabama you might not be coming
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to the gulf you might be thinking what are some of the traditional other things i should have when i'm here and honestly what are the most traditional alabama things and probably the one alabama thing
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you'll see all around the country when you go to barbecue places is Alabama white sauce. Now
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if you come here and you go to a barbecue place, whether you're going to Dreamland and having their fantastic ribs, you're going to have pulled pork at a place on the side of the road
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there's fantastic barbecue here. So yes, you got to eat the barbecue when you're here, but it's the white sauce, the Alabama white sauce you have with it. It's a mayonnaise-based
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sauce that you're going to put on chicken. You're going to put on your pulled pork sandwich. It's
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so good, but it's not for everybody because it is a mayo-based sauce. So some people get
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a little scared by it, but you have to have it. Every time I come to Alabama, actually, we got
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down here, Josh was like, don't forget to put me up some Bob Gibson's white sauce. I'm like, yes, dear, whatever you want, dear, you got to have it. Because that is one thing that here in
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Alabama is fantastic with that barbecue or the chicken or pretty much anything. It is really
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really a good thing. Now, other meats you want to have when you're here, you know, we are in the
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south. So fried chicken is fantastic when you're down here. Fried catfish as well. Oh my gosh
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you can have that It really good And honestly if you want to have some good meats and try some good sides I do recommend going to any place that has a meat and three which means you have one meat like one meat main dish and then you get three sides And there so many great sides you can have when you here
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Yes, the old standby of mac and cheese, that's my go-to. But the one I recommend for you the most are collard greens
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Oh my gosh. The collard greens, if they cook it in the ham hock with the little ham bits in there
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oh my God, it's so good. Okay, so that's another thing you have to have. There's all kinds of other side dishes that can go in there
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sometimes they'll put peach cobbler as a side. It's okay. It's a fruit. It's a side dish. It's
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not necessarily just a dessert. So you might want to try that. And honestly, the peaches here in
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Alabama are fantastic. So if you have the peach cobbler as one of those threes, you're mean three
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or if you have peach pie later or just eat the peaches, you can't go wrong. Okay. And I think
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another one that sometimes will show up as a side, but sometimes actually be an appetizer is fried
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okra. Okay. You can have okra, you can have pickled okra, you can have normal okra, you can have stewed okra. But for me, I love the fried okra here in Alabama. You can have that for an appetizer
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It'll pop up in some menus. Another appetizer you'll probably see is fried green tomatoes. Remember
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fried green tomatoes, they got to be a thick tomato, okay? It's not a type of tomato. It's just
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a young tomato that's still green because it's firm because they got to bread it and fry it up
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and make heaven in your mouth, okay? So big red tomatoes that are soft never work that way. But
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don't worry, you won't have fried green tomatoes like that here in Alabama. You have fantastic
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fried green tomatoes, okay? Some other traditional southern sides you're going to love when you're
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here. Of course, you have pimento cheese, which is a great dip you're going to have, and sometimes
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sometimes you get places that'll put in a sandwich for you to have a pimento grilled cheese
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Ho, ho, ho, ho. So nice. So nice when you are here. Other things, the devil. Eggs are obviously
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a good color as well, but one starter I think you'll want to enjoy. This is one that Jocelyn
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and Caleb just love to death, our fried pickles. You have like little, it's not like a whole pickle
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fried. No, no. It's the pickle sliced up and they bread it and fry it. And actually, even if you
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don't like pickles, they're actually really good to have. It's really good if you're at a bar or
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someplace to have as a starter with your beers. Nice little relaxing thing. Sitting on the beach
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having a drink and then eating some fried pickles. Man, you can't go wrong with that
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Now, another good kind of drinking snack that I enjoy when I'm here is boiled peanuts. And if
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you've never had boiled peanuts before, they're not like your peanuts you get in the can and pour
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out and eat by hand. These are little peanuts in the shell that are boiled and cooked and the water has got
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spices and it's got stuff in it to give it a little flavor in those peanuts
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And so what you get is you get that hot wet like styrofoam cup or in a plastic bag and you just pop them in suck on it pop them open get the peanuts out take the shell out you don eat the shell throw those out and enjoy
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That is a really, really great thing. And you'll see it on the side of the road. I think one of
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the things that's important, if you're talking about food in Alabama, if you see places on the
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side of the road that look like the middle of nowhere, you'll be fine. Okay. The best barbecue
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places, little holes in the side of the road, best fried chicken, hole in the side of the road
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mom and dad are in the back making the fried chicken for you to enjoy you'll see a line outside
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just go and enjoy it same thing with the boiled peanuts they're just sold on the side of the road
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and you can really enjoy that and that's one of the things you really want to have when you're here in alabama but it's something i want you to kind of think about that this is not just a oh you have
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to go to a nice restaurant to eat well here no you can eat well anywhere shrimp and grits you can
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get that from a mom and pop store to a fancy restaurant and it's going to be fantastic now
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another thing i think you need to know is when you're looking at eating here they love their breads okay then i don't say bread i mean more like biscuits and cornbread those are two sides
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that'll show up at a lot of your meals and they might ask you would you like biscuits or cornbread
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that's up to you i'm a biscuit person and if i get my biscuits i'm gonna love it so you get
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biscuits here especially for breakfast a lot of times it really makes the biscuit is what you have
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on top of it yes sometimes you actually see chocolate gravy on biscuits okay it does happen
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okay but my personal favorite is old-fashioned biscuits and gravy it's a gravy made with
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sausage it is so good any breakfast place in alabama that's worth its salt is gonna have it
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and i guarantee you're gonna love it because oh my god the biscuits are so good and then that
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white sausage gravy with it you can't go wrong now another kind of big treat i think you might
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want to have this is one joss want to make sure i mentioned to you was orange rolls so you know
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the the cinnamon rolls you had as a kid that your mom would make and stuff well or your grandma would
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make for you well they have imagine with the cinnamon it's actually an orangey kind of thing
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it's actually really good and you actually see it in stores all over the u.s where you can get
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the cinnamon rolls and extra orange rolls i mean it's it's some of those things that really started
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here that you're really going to enjoy another kind of big good you're going to like is what's
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called a lane cake sometimes they got a price cake i've seen it online being called that but
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what this is is a sponge cake that's got coconut raisins and custard and and pecans on top and
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it's actually pretty good you don't see it everywhere but it's a regional cake you can
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to have when you're here. And those pecans come bad, because Alabama actually has some really great pecans when
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you are here. So you can get the nuts but probably the best way to get it as a dessert is a slice of pecan pie Oh my God Pecan pie or pecan pie I mean everyone has their own way to say it but pecan pie for me it just like this gooey goodness with the pecans in it
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It's just, Oh, it's heaven. If you can get a slice of that or slice that peach pie I talked about
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before for dessert, you're going to be just fine. And if you're going to one of those, you know
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barbecue joints, the fried chicken joints at the side of the road, there's one dessert you definitely
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have to have when you're in Alabama. And that is banana pudding. Okay. We've all had pudding as
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kids. Now, it's a banana flavored pudding, and you got vanilla wafers on there, too. Some people
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put them on top, some people on the bottom. They just gotta be on there. But my God, if you're here
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in Alabama and you see banana pudding, you have to try it. Don't be like, oh, I don't eat pudding
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I'm not a baby. No, no, no. Don't roll that way. Like, you gotta have banana pudding when you're
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here. Now, some people might think, well, you're getting a little heavy with the food, with the fried chicken and the barbecue and all the cakes and stuff. What if I'm just hot? I'm here on the
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beach. I'm just like, oh, how do I deal with the heat and humidity in the summer here? Go grab a
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snow cone. Believe me, there's plenty of little trucks driving around. They'll sell you snow cones
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around Alabama that you'll be able to enjoy. Well, especially down here in the southern part, okay
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But probably the best way to stay cool when you are here is having some sweet tea. Yes, they love
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the sweet tea here in Alabama. And no, sweet tea is not just tea with sugar in it. It's a lot more
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goes into that process. That's why when you go to the north and you ask, hey, do you have sweet tea
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And they're like, oh, we have tea and sugar packets. Like, no, it's got to brew together. It's got to be
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one together and cook together and just fuse into that sweet, sweet goodness of sweet tea
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And when you're down here and you get a big glass of, of, you know, iced sweet tea, it
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just, it's so good. It helps wash away, not the calories because it's got its own calories on there
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But honestly, that's one of the best ways to kind of cool down when you are here
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And then the last thing I want to say is if you do come to Alabama, especially during
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Mardi Gras, and if you're in Mobile for the original Mardi Gras, you might notice they
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throw out moon pies. Yes, you know, Moon Pies, it's the kind of cookie sandwich covered in chocolate
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Well, there's other flavors, but covered in chocolate with marshmallow in the middle. Yeah, you got to have that
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If you're in Mobile for Mardi Gras, yeah, they're going to throw a few out to you, and you're going to enjoy them when you're here
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So grab one of those as well, especially if you're on the road, because if you're driving through Alabama
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and they actually have decent rows when you're driving through here, that's a nice treat you can pick up at any gas station
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And oh, if you see a Jack's, it's a fast food restaurant that's from here in Alabama
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stop there and get lunch there because it is a thing that is truly Alabama
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Anyway, I wish y'all the best and I'll say bye from here on the Gulf Coast here in Alabama
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