Cuisine of Kentucky facts for kids
The cuisine of Kentucky is mostly like the traditional food of the Southern United States. Many dinner dishes include fried catfish and hushpuppies, fried chicken, and country fried steak. These are often served with vegetables like green beans, greens, or pinto beans. Pinto beans are often slow-cooked with pork for flavor and served with cornbread.
Other popular foods you might find across Kentucky are fried green tomatoes, cheese grits, corn pudding, fried okra, and chicken and dumplings.
Kentucky is also famous for its own special kind of barbecue. This barbecue is unique because it uses mutton (meat from a grown sheep). It's a style of Southern barbecue that you'll mostly find only in Kentucky.
While Kentucky's food is very similar to other Southern food, it has some unique dishes. Especially in Louisville, you'll find the Hot Brown and Derby pie. Derby pie is a type of pecan pie, which is common in the American South.
In northwestern Kentucky, burgoo is a favorite stew. In the southwestern parts of the state, regular chili con carne is a common meal. In northern Kentucky, Louisville, and Lexington, Cincinnati chili is a popular fast food. Northern Kentucky and Louisville also have many people with German-American backgrounds. This means they sometimes prefer foods like European sausages. However, most of the state's food is truly Southern. People often enjoy breakfast meats like country ham and ground pork sausage. A famous drink from Kentucky is bourbon whiskey. Common desserts include chess pie, pecan pie, blackberry cobbler, and bread pudding.
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History of Kentucky Food
Early writers like Timothy Flint said that Kentuckians ate persimmon fruit, venison (deer meat), and wild turkey. They also ate sweet potatoes and "pies smoked on the table." They drank maple beer and Madeira wine when there was plenty of game. In harder times, they ate "hog and homily" (pork and cornmeal).
In the early days, after Kentucky was settled but before it joined the Union, food prices were low. But it was hard to get money. Salt was very expensive. However, sweeteners like honey and maple syrup were easier to find.
Homes on the Kentucky frontier were often simple. Some were just lean-tos, while others were more sturdy cabins. Only the better cabins had hearths made with stone. Daniel Drake, a doctor from Cincinnati, described his 18th-century Kentucky home. He talked about a "cabin hearth" with a buckeye log and hickory wood burning. A Jonny cake was baking on a clean ash board. A frying pan made its special sound, and a tea kettle hung over the fire.
Another person, Thomas Ashe, wrote about a Kentucky dinner with salt bacon, squirrel broth, and homily. He said that early Kentuckians rarely ate vegetables or fresh meat. He wrote, "The Kentuckyan ate nothing but bacon, which indeed is the favourite diet of all the inhabitants of the State..."
Famous Kentucky Dishes
Drinks and Spreads
- Ale-8-One—a ginger-flavored soft drink made in Winchester.
- Beer cheese—a spread made with beer, Cheddar cheese, and spices.
- Benedictine—a cucumber and cream cheese spread. It's often green and was made popular by Louisville caterer Jennie C. Benedict.
- Kentucky Common—a type of beer that was historically popular around the Louisville area.
- Mint julep—a special drink made with bourbon and crushed mint. It's the "official" drink of the Kentucky Derby.
- Ski—a citrus soda made from orange and lemon juices. It's common in the southern part of the state.
Sweets and Desserts
- Bourbon balls—crushed cookies mixed with chocolate and bourbon. They are then covered in powdered sugar. These were first made in Frankfort during Prohibition.
- Derby pie—a chocolate and walnut pie. It's named after the Kentucky Derby.
- Modjeska—a gooey caramel candy with a marshmallow center. It's named after a Polish actress who visited Louisville in the 1800s.
- Stack cake—a layered cake from Appalachia. It has apple preserves spread between each layer.
Main Dishes and Sides
- Biscuits and gravy—a flour biscuit usually covered in white gravy. Sometimes the gravy has a lot of black pepper.
- Burgoo—a thick stew made from vegetables and mutton, lamb, or other game meats.
- Chow-Chow—a dish of chilled pickled vegetables found throughout Appalachia.
- Fried catfish—catfish from Kentucky lakes and rivers are sometimes coated in batter and fried until crispy and golden-brown.
- Frog legs—often breaded and deep-fried.
- Goetta—a northern Kentucky specialty. It's made mostly from ground meat and steel-cut oats. It's seasoned with bay leaves, rosemary, salt, pepper, and thyme.
- Henry Bain sauce—a strong sauce often served with game meats.
- Hot Brown—a layered dish with bread, bacon, and turkey. It's topped with a creamy Mornay sauce.
- Johnny cake—also known as spider cornbread in some areas. It's a flat cornbread cooked by direct heat.
- Louisville-style chili—a stew-like chili that changes a lot from family to family. It usually has meat (like beef, pork, or venison), sauce, beans, garlic, onions, and spaghetti. It often includes many other vegetables and ingredients.
- Mingua beef jerky—dried meat made and packaged in Bourbon County.
- Rolled oyster—a seafood dish served in and around Louisville.
- Spoonbread—a sweet, moist dish made with cornmeal.
Common Ingredients in Kentucky Cooking
Vegetables
You'll find many vegetables in Kentucky dishes. These include potatoes, corn, carrots, onions, turnips, parsnips, tomatoes, green beans, butter beans, peas, mustard greens, kale, scallions, and sweet potatoes.
Other common vegetables are yellow summer squash, zucchini, butternut squash, cauliflower, broccoli, mushrooms, cucumbers, asparagus, bell peppers (sometimes called mangoes by older Kentuckians), banana peppers, cabbage, beets, eggplant, garlic, and avocados.
Fruits
Fruits grown and used in Kentucky include blackberries, peaches, apples, watermelon, cantaloupe, pears, plums, grapes, cherries, pawpaws, and persimmons.
Nuts
Common nuts used in Kentucky cooking are walnuts, pecans, almonds, peanuts, and cashews.
Grains
Important grains include oats, corn, and sorghum.
Meats
Meats commonly eaten in Kentucky are chicken, Beef, turkey, catfish, venison, Ham and pork (like barbecued pork shoulder), and Mutton. Sometimes, rabbit and squirrel are also eaten.
Kentucky Pit Barbecue
The Ohio River region of western Kentucky has a special style of pit barbecue. This area includes Daviess, Henderson, and Union counties. This style uses a lot of vinegar-based sauces. It's often served with pickles, onions, potato salad, and coleslaw. The three main meats used are chicken, pork, and mutton. Burgoo is also a special dish here. Owensboro hosts the International Bar-B-Q Festival, which is a big barbecue competition.
Further west, in the Purchase area, pit barbecue usually means pork shoulder. When people just say "barbecue" there, they usually mean pork. The other meats found in the Owensboro–Henderson area are also available. The sauces used in both regions are very similar.
