5 'Weird' Southern Foods Our Readers Love (2025)

There are a lot of viral videos on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook featuring folks talking about “weird” Southern foods. These “influencers” sample unique foods “for the first time” and share their feelings about them—good, bad, and nauseating.

But many of these “weird” Southern foods were a result of making do in hard times. With all respect to those hard times and those folks who just love them, there’s no denying that some of these foods are off the “normal” spectrum. Take a look at the list below to see if you’ve ever encountered these uniquely Southern favorites.

Chicken Gizzards

My friend Ray (who is also from Mississippi) is the only person I have ever met who actually loves fried chicken gizzards. Loves them. He grew up eating them, and I know a lot of Southerners from his generation did.

My hangup is this—do you know what a gizzard is? It’s basically the third of three chicken stomachs, the last stop for the chicken’s food before it hits the intestinal roller coaster. The muscular gizzard contains grit pecked up from the chicken’s ground feeding, which is used to crush up the chicken’s food.

No.

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Vienna Sausages

These petite cans of tiny, pale, casing-less “sausages” packed in (urp) clear gelatin (whyyy) were my Grandfather Pop-Pop’s favorite snack. I can still see him eating them in the kitchen. I even had some from time to time, but the gelatin slickityness was a struggle for me.

I’m not sure exactly what’s in them; the label just says "pork" which is a little open-ended for me. Like, what parts, exactly? Pop-Pop loved them regardless, but then again he stormed the beach at Normandy on D-Day, so he was obviously made of sterner stuff than me.

Pickled Eggs

Walk in gas stations across the South and you’ll spy gallon-size (or bigger) jars of peeled, hard-boiled eggs floating in a (usually) pink, transparent brine. Bobbing like faux eyeballs in one of those gory Halloween punches, these pickled eggs are appealing to many, but I can’t bring myself to try one. We're not even going to get into pickled pigs feet.

Red Eye Gravy

On a completely different spectrum from most gravy, Red Eye Gravy is usually made by cooking super-salty country ham in a skillet, removing it, then deglazing the pan with a little bit of black coffee. It’s thin, a little bitter, and very savory. There’s no doubt this recipe was invented by a creative, resourceful Southern dad at some point in the distant past. It just feels like a Dad move, right?

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Squirrel

Some folks think these fluffy-tailed tree rats are adorable; others think they’re delicious. Squirrel hunting is definitely a “thing” across the South, especially in more rural areas where they’re abundant. I was disappointed to find zero recipes for squirrel in the Southern Living archives, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find an old spiral-bound community cookbook that doesn’t include at least one squirrel recipe.

To take it one step further, fried squirrel brains are considered somewhat of a delicacy in some parts of the South. That’s a big “no thank you” from me.

All sarcasm and joking aside, don’t be ashamed of the food you love. Whether your food association is born of hard times or good memories, you like what you like, and there’s nothing weird about that.

But no squirrel brains for me, thanks.

Read the original article on Southern Living