For some states, it’s easy to pick their “must try” food. Illinois, for example, would have to be deep dish pizza out of Chicago. And Philly cheesesteak is the obvious choice for Pennsylvania.
But what about Georgia? We’re called the Peach State, so it must be a dish with peaches in it. Not so fast.
The website Guilty Eats set out to determine the best, “most uniquely delicious” foods that come from each of the 50 states.
“Some dishes may not look the greatest, but we don’t always have to eat with our eyes first,” Guilty Eats wrote. “Sometimes taste overrides an ugly-looking dish, and sometimes it’s the other way around, to be fair.”
For Georgia, Guilty Eats picked boiled peanuts. If you’re scratching your head, remember the peanut is our official state crop. The Peach State produces about half of all peanuts grown in the United States.
Although boiled peanuts are unique to Georgia, they are a Southern staple. What was once bought only at baseball games and roadside stands can now be found on restaurant menus.
“They are not a restaurant thing,” Matt Lee told the AJC’s food editor, Ligaya Figueras, last summer. “Some restaurants have broken that rule lately.”
The Lee Bros. — Matt and his younger brother and business partner, Ted — sell and ship boiled peanuts nationwide via their website, boiledpeanuts.com.
Restaurants in Atlanta that have broken Lee’s rule “include SweetWater, whose batches are boiled in the brewery’s 420 Extra Pale Ale and sold in the taproom, and Wood’s Chapel BBQ in Summerhill, where chef and co-owner Todd Ginsberg seasons them with cayenne, Old Bay and lots of salt,” Figueras wrote.
Guilty Eats recommends getting your boiled peanuts from Finch & Fifth where they are boiled in “their very own Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, with their own special blend of delicious spices.”
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