9 Georgia Foods That Make the Rest of the Country Go, “What?”

Many Americans think Georgia food and drinks start and end with peaches and sweet tea.

That’s the gift-shop version.

What Georgians pile onto a plate can send a first-time visitor easing away from the table, from a gravy built on coffee to a cold loaf pressed out of a hog’s head.

These are the Georgia foods many Americans have never heard of.

1. Boiled Peanuts

Georgia grows more peanuts than any other state, and the strangest thing it does with them is drop them in a pot of salt water and boil them for hours.

The state pulls in about half the peanuts in the whole country, so there’s more than enough to spare for the boiling pot.

A boiled peanut comes out soft, wet, and salty, closer to a cooked bean than the crunchy roasted peanut the rest of the country expects.

You slurp it out of the shell.

Roadside stands from Tifton down to Folkston sell them by the steaming bagful, scooped out of a cooler or a slow cooker.

Vendors scoop them by the pound at flea markets and ballgames, still warm in the shell.

Warm and dripping.

2. Peanuts in Coca-Cola

The world got Coca-Cola from Atlanta, and then Georgians did something to it that still makes outsiders wince.

They tip a small bag of salted peanuts straight into the bottle and drink the two together.

Coca-Cola came out of an Atlanta pharmacy back in 1886, and the peanut habit followed not long after, a one-handed snack for farmers and drivers who wanted salt and a drink at once.

The peanuts bob at the top, then wash into your mouth with every swallow.

To anybody watching, it looks like a soda somebody ruined on purpose.

Salt meets fizz.

3. Chitlins

Fewer things empty a Georgia kitchen of newcomers faster than a pot of chitlins simmering on the stove.

Chitlins are pig intestines, cleaned by hand and boiled for hours until tender, a soul-food staple on holiday tables around Atlanta and across south Georgia.

The smell arrives first.

It fills the whole house, which is why many cooks crack every window or run the pot on a burner out on the porch.

They also carry federal food-safety warnings, since the cleaning has to be thorough before anything hits the pot.

On New Year’s Day, chitlins share the table with black-eyed peas and collards, a plate meant to bring a year of luck.

4. Slimy Okra

Every Georgia garden runs over with okra by July, and its texture is the exact spot where outsiders tap out.

Slice a pod open, and a slick, ropey goo strings out of it.

Fried in cornmeal, okra wins people over.

Stewed or boiled, it goes full slime, and that same goo thickens a pot of gumbo.

The plant came to the South from West Africa generations ago, and Georgia has grown it ever since.

Boiled okra draws the longest strings of all.

Slick to the last bite.

5. Souse

A Georgia butcher can still turn a whole hog’s head into a cold, sliced loaf called souse.

The meat off the head simmers down, sets into a vinegary gel, and chills until you can slice it onto crackers.

Some folks call it hog’s head cheese, though there’s no cheese anywhere in it.

Country stores and meat counters from Macon to the coast keep it stocked year round.

It’s cold and wobbly.

Sliced thin onto saltines with a shake of hot sauce, it earns its spot on a Georgia holiday table.

6. Pot Likker

The best part of a Georgia pot of collard greens, many locals will tell you, is the murky liquid pooled at the bottom.

It's called pot likker, the broth left after greens cook down with a ham hock, and Georgians sop it with cornbread or drink it straight from the bowl.

The stuff is loaded with iron and vitamin C, so it never goes down the drain.

People take it seriously.

Back in 1931, the governor of Louisiana and an Atlanta Constitution editor feuded in print over whether you dunk your cornbread in it or crumble it on top.

The Atlanta paper ran hundreds of letters before the fuss died down.

7. Pickled Pig's Feet

Walk into a country store or a gas station across south Georgia, and a big glass jar of pickled pig's feet sits right by the register.

They're whole hog trotters, brined pink in vinegar and packed in that cloudy jar for weeks.

You fish one out cold and gnaw it as a snack.

Counters around Waycross and Valdosta keep them next to the pickled eggs and a bag of Golden Flake.

The jar stays full.

Regulars buy them two at a time, wrapped in a paper towel for the drive home.

8. Red-Eye Gravy

A Georgia country-ham breakfast arrives with a gravy built on a pot of coffee, and that one detail derails most outsiders.

Red-eye gravy is nothing but the drippings from pan-fried country ham loosened with black coffee, poured hot over the ham and a pile of grits.

One legend ties the name to Andrew Jackson asking for gravy as red as his cook's bloodshot eyes.

The coffee cuts the salt and thins the grease into something you spoon over everything.

Yes, coffee.

Order it at a diner up in the north Georgia mountains, and it comes ladled over ham, grits, and a split biscuit.

9. Scuppernongs

Backyard vines across Georgia grow scuppernongs, a thick-skinned bronze grape people eat in a way that unsettles company.

You pop the whole grape in, squeeze the sweet pulp loose with your tongue, and spit the tough hull and seeds back out.

Scuppernongs are muscadines, one of the few grapes native to the American South, and the University of Georgia has bred new kinds of them for decades.

Come fall, they hang heavy on the arbor and turn up in baskets at roadside stands.

The skin is too leathery and bitter to swallow, so out it goes.

Spit the hull.