Southern food may have a reputation for being heavy and unhealthy, but celebrity chef Tiffany Derry says that stereotype misses a big part of what’s traditionally been served on tables across the South.
“I think a lot of times that criticism comes from folks who don’t actually understand the South,” Derry told Fox News Digital.
The Texas-born chef and restaurateur, who competed on “Top Chef” and recently became a judge on “MasterChef,” pointed to her own family’s Louisiana roots as an example.
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“We had a farm,” she said. “I ate from the farm very much.”
Derry said fresh vegetables were a routine part of meals growing up — long before “farm-to-table” became a restaurant buzzword.
“It wasn’t this farm-to-table thing. It was what you did,” she said.
Neighbors would share what they grew, while meals featured relatively small amounts of protein alongside rice, peas, vegetables and beans, Derry recalled.
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She said foods commonly associated with Southern cooking today don’t tell the entire story.
“It’s important to not just tell the story of the country cooking where we talk about mac and cheese and we talk about biscuits and biscuits and gravy,” Derry said.
Those heavier dishes represented “such a very small amount of the cooking” and weren’t “everyday” foods in her experience.
Cooking was also a family affair. Derry said her grandmother had 11 children and she has more than 50 cousins. As a child, Derry helped prepare greens, peas and green beans.
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“People don’t really understand where food comes from,” she said.
After 27 years in the restaurant industry, however, Derry believes she’s seeing renewed interest in cooking at home.
She recalled a period when Americans seemed to be cooking less and some people “just didn’t really know how to cook.” Now, she said, younger generations are seeking out recipes on TikTok, entertaining at home and even embracing bread-making.
“I love the fact that people are interested in sourdough. Like, are you kidding me?” Derry said. “People are back making bread.”
Derry sees the evolution firsthand on “MasterChef,” where home cooks can progress to producing food that looks as though it came from professional chefs.
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She also noted that some younger cooks learned differently from previous generations.
“So many of their parents didn’t really cook,” Derry said. “And so they learned on their own, and they learned through watching and through chefs and TV and reading books and magazines and all of that.”
Derry spoke with Fox News Digital while promoting a partnership with Tostitos and the brand’s new Chunky Guacamole for football season.
She said tailgating food has undergone its own transformation, ranging from traditional burgers to Kobe beef sliders and increasingly elaborate spreads made for Instagram.
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“Before, people weren’t taking pictures of it. They were just eating it,” Derry said.
“Now I feel like people do first start taking pictures, you know? And I’m like, ‘This is for us to eat.'”
