7. Fried Chicken & Cornbread

I'm not gonna lie. I like the stuff too. It's an old southern tradition ofmaking ends meet when you're poor and gotta feed a ton of damn kids. Using all the "dark meat" parts of the chicken that uppity northerners wouldn't feed to their dogs, southern folk found a way to deep fry it in batter to hide the greasy fat flavor.

Once it worked for chicken, we started throwing in more bread (you know, so you get full faster) and deep frying everything in batter. Like some crazy deep-south tempura we started frying up pickles and okra and even cheesecake!

So why do black people get drawn to this stuff so easily? Well, the same reason farmers back in Georgia and Louisianna did: It's cheap, it feeds a large family and you feel full and satisfied quicker. Comfort food.