7 Classic Recipes That Remind Us Of Summer In The South

The abundance of delicious foods that fill up a Southern table is an embarrassment of riches, especially in the summer. Our beloved vegetable side dishes and fruit-forward desserts make up the very framework of our flavor memories, conjuring fond smiles with their bright colors and comforting flavors.

It feels unmannerly to pick favorites, but I were ordered to walk the plank or choose my most-beloved summer recipes, these 7 would keep me from being sent to Davy Jones’s locker.

Cream Corn

Shucking corn is one of the messiest kitchen tasks there is, nevertheless, Southerners persist, because cream corn is one of the most blissful summer dishes. I picture my mom in the kitchen with a towel on the counter to catch the kernels as she hacked away at corn cobs with all her might. Despite her best efforts, we always discovered rogue kernels on the floor days later.

Butterbeans

Whether you shell them on the back porch or pick them up at your favorite roadside stand or farmers’ market, these adorable, pale green beans are one of the South’s most comforting foods. My grandmother cooked hers with plenty of butter and a little sugar, like this delicious recipe.

Peach Ice Cream

There’s no sound more evocative of summer than that of an old-school ice cream maker’s motor droning its monotonous naaaaaaaa with the backbeat of gas station ice and rock salt grinding and shifting against the spinning ice cream cannister. And there’s nothing more excruciating than sweating bullets while impatiently waiting for the machine to lock up, signaling the ice cream is ready to eat. My grandmother was family-famous for her ice cream, and what I’d give to have her make it for us one more time.

Squash Casserole

It doesn’t make sense to cook a hot cheesy casserole when the Devil’s thermostat is set at 212°F, but I’ll always make an exception for squash casserole. My grandmother always called me “Joshie Squashie,” partially because it rhymed but also because my Sunday dinner plate was, more often than not, generously laden with more than my fair share of squash casserole. The heart wants what the heart wants.

Tomato Pie

Would you be shocked if I told you we didn’t grow up with tomato pie in my family? For some reason, it just wasn’t something that we ate. Maybe my grandmother tried once and it didn’t take. My mom never tried because she’s not a fan of tomatoes, except for these two-bite tomato toasts. However, I’ve made up for lost time by making tomato pies on repeat all summer long. Whether you choose a galette-style tomato pie, mini tomato pies, or a classic deep-dish version, you can’t go wrong.

Blackberry Cobbler

I spent summers in the woods behind my house outside Jackson, Mississippi, chin-high in wild blackberry brambles, obsessively picking as many of the deep purple berries as I could. Those wild berries were adorably tiny—smaller than a petite blueberry—but that didn’t stop us from filling our forgotten-but-recycled plastic Halloween jack-o-lanterns with as many as we could before we took too many thorns to the thumbs and gave up the hunt. After a few summer afternoons we’d have enough for a cobbler, which my neighbor would bake and share with all of us in her backyard. I don’t even like blackberries, but the memory is no less sweet.

Fried Okra

My momma’s fried okra is the only version worth eating, if you ask me. She keeps it simple—no egg, no buttermilk, just a simple dredge in seasoned cornmeal. Then she fries it to within an inch of its surrendered life, until it’s completely desiccated and crunchy all the way through, like it’s been freeze-dried or spent a month in a food dehydrator. Don’t mistake my words for criticism; her incomparably crispy okra coins are so good they never actually made it to the supper table. We ate them up as soon as they were cool enough to only give our tongues second-degree burns.