Top: Southern Fried Chicken Dinner (mashed potatoes/gravy, dumplins, sweet corn, green beans, cole slaw and homemade yeast rolls) served family style at Giant City Lodge in Giant City State Park in Southern Illinois.
Bottom: Northern Chicken DinnerI wrote the following for my college Writing 121 class a few years ago. Funny what you can compare and contrast!The Civil War, or the War Between the States as it is called south of the Mason-Dixon Line, is not over! There are countless subjects that “fire up” the heart of any true Southerner, and the quest for the perfect chicken dinner is one of them. There is definitely a “North and South” difference when it comes to a chicken dinner dining experience. While you might walk away from both dinners a bit stuffed, you typically will be stuffed full of entirely different foods.
Walk into any family restaurant in “Dixie” at suppertime and you will most likely be greeted with a cheerful, “Hi, ya’ll. Have a seat and your waitress will be right with ya.” Your waitress will arrive and ask if you want sweet or unsweet tea. She’s not talking about hot tea; she’s talking about fresh brewed ice tea, the Southerners year around beverage of choice. If you ask a Northern waitress for “sweet tea” you will probably get a blank stare, or a pot of hot tea with a few small packets of sugar. You will also get that “deer in the headlights” look from the Northern waitress if you ask if the tea is fresh brewed. It seems that the only ice tea that most Northern restaurants know is the kind that flows out of the fountain pop machine.
A good dinner salad is usually enjoyed next by Northerners and Southerners alike. The Southern salad might contain some black-eyed peas, baby lima beans and turnip greens in addition to the expected lettuce and carrots. The Northern salad usually has something a bit “artsy” in it, like a festively cut piece of onion or a hard chunk of baby cob corn. The big difference is the choice of bread that accompanies the salad. In the North you might get a stale breadstick or if you’re really fortunate, a special dinner roll fresh off of the Franz delivery truck! Those dining in the South will enjoy either a big thick slab of hot cornbread and honey butter or a mouth-watering handmade buttermilk biscuit and fresh jam.
Moving along toward the main course, some Southern decisions need to be made. In addition to the real mashed potatoes and country gravy, you will choose two or three “sides” from a huge list that includes: corn, fresh green beans and bacon, greens, cole slaw, fried apples, dumplings, macaroni and cheese, hash brown or sweet potato casserole, fried okra, to name a few. In the North, you will have the “awesome” task of deciding between a baked potato, French fries or rice pilaf, which is really a clump of instant rice mixed with bullion with a few peas thrown in for good luck. Most Northerners decide to “play it safe” and stick with the baked potato (only available after 5:00 p.m.) or enjoy a few fries with ketchup.
After the choices are made, dinner, as it is known in the North, or supper, as it is known in the South, is served. It’s time to bring out the “big bird”. “Up” North your chicken might be broiled, baked or marinated in some “fancy-dancy” goop. It might be covered with fresh lemon slices or it might be stuffed with something strange. It will probably be a boneless breast, as Northerners think the breast is the only edible part of the bird. You can be sure that it will have a pretentious sounding name, like “Grand Chicken Lemon”, or something of that nature. “Down” South you will enjoy golden brown, crispy, hot, well-seasoned fried chicken, breasts, drumsticks, wings and other assorted parts included. It will have been fried in either butter, lard or bacon grease and it will be so delicious that your arteries won’t care a bit! Plain and simple, “down home” chicken can’t be beat!
If you are still able to find a corner of your tummy left unfilled, dessert is waiting. In the South, you might choose an apple dumpling made with tender slices of Golden Delicious apples, baked in a crust, covered with pecan streusel and served warm with vanilla ice cream. In the North, you might pay the price of a whole pie for a sliver of pie, “fresh” from the freezer. As you eat your dessert, your gaze will fall upon the bill for your meal. It is almost guaranteed that the Southern meal will be about one-half of the cost of the Northern meal. It’s one instance where you don’t get what you pay for! However, the expected tip is the same no matter where you dine. You then “roll” out of the restaurant with visions of a long nap to help you recover from your gluttony.
While the history books declare that the North won the Civil War, there are definitely some battles that go unreported and undocumented. One such battle is the “Battle of the Chicken Dinner”. This battle rages on and fuels the War Between the States, fought in Southern dining halls where the tinkling of the ice cubes in the sweet tea mingle with the rebel yell of “Southern chicken rules!” to the fern adorned eateries of the North and the timid cries of “Just say no to fat!” Having eaten chicken dinners on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, I choose to live and dine in Dixie! The South will rise again, thanks to their perfect chicken dinner.
