Photograph courtesy of GDECD
In a place as bountiful as Georgia, good food is a way of life. From the Northeast Mountains to the Coast, you’ll find original dishes, homemade products, and events that celebrate the finer points of eating and drinking. Go somewhere delicious this season.
Blue Ridge and Fannin County
There’s plenty of flavor in Blue Ridge and Fannin County. Family-owned Mercier Orchards started with apples and now grows a variety of fruits, like strawberries, cherries, and peaches and even operates a farm winery. You can pick-your-own apples, or buy ready-made products (pies!) at the market shop and bakery. Stop in the local hangout Blue Ridge Brewery for craft beers, fine wines, and live music. Perk up at the beloved L & L Beanery, housed in the town’s historic bank. Experience locavore dining at Harvest on Main, which sources many of its ingredients from Fannin County farmers.
Columbus
Columbus is home to some pretty original flavors, like the fiery Country’s Backfire Sauce, and distinctive food items, like the scrambled hot dog, a wiener on bread, drowning in chili, topped with oyster crackers, and served throughout the city. Get your share of samples at the annual Dragon Boat Festival and CutBait Music Festival May 10, which promises boat-rowing and live music. And keep an eye out this fall for the Uptown Beer and Wine Festival showcasing more than 100 Georgian wineries and breweries.
Classic South
Must Try Treat
The award-winning buttermilk pie at The Yesterday Cafe is a must in Greensboro. This family-owned restaurant serves up at least a dozen of these sweet, custardy pies daily.
Homegrown Product
Family owned in Waynesboro since 1980, Byne Blueberry Farms’s organic berries and its signature rabbiteye blueberries are great in jellies and jams, dipped in dark chocolate, or all by themselves.
Get Your Hands Dirty
Visit the dairy at Flat Creek Farm and Dairy to see how its heralded artisan cheeses, like the Flat Creek Southern Blues and Irish Dragons Breath, are made. And if you can’t tear yourself away, the property also operates as a hunting and fishing lodge with farm tours, fine dining, and a spa on site.
Fun Food Fact
Opened in Dearing last year, White Hills Lavender and Herb Farm is one of the few commercial lavender growers in the South. Their products can be found through Locally Grown Augusta, or you can visit to pick your own herbs and lavender and see how the growers make their fragrant oils, balms, teas, and herbal blends.
Sandy Springs
Sandy Springs is home to two mouthwateringly good food products. Head to CalyRoad Creamery for fresh, handcrafted artisan cheeses. While the WayPoint, a Camambert, is a prizewinner, we like Little Stone Mountain, which is goat’s milk based and dusted with ash. Satisfy your sweet tooth with Susansnaps, gingersnaps that were developed to soothe nausea during chemotherapy. Featured on the Today Show, flavors include original, citris, pnutty, and aloha.
Magnolia Midlands
Must Try Treat
Your taste buds will cherish this lightly fried, juicy buffalo quail appetizer from Elements Bistro in Lyons. Serving an ever-changing cosmopolitan menu, this item features a not-too-spicy buffalo sauce and from-scratch ranch.
Homegrown Product
Few vegetables reach the heights of culinary superstardom that the Vidalia onion enjoys. Learn about the history of the sweet onion and its impact on the state at the Vidalia Onion Museum, and stop by the onion field on your way out.
Get Your Hands Dirty
Help feed the cattle and pigs before you package chicken eggs and tend the garden at Hunter Cattle Company in Brooklet. In addition to its prized grassfed beef, this ranch offers barn loft accommodations and on-site camping for an authentic farming experience.
Fun Food Fact
Alma is the blueberry capital of Georgia. It’s annual blueberry festival is known for its blueberry pancake breakfast and blueberries any way you’d like ’em. You can even stay at the Inn at Blueberry Plantation for a country club escape.
Five Parks for a Picnic
Enjoy the splendor of spring with all your Georgia goodies on a picnic at one of our five favorite Georgia State Parks spots.
1. Watson Mill Bridge State Park: Picnic tables are right next to the state’s longest covered bridge, which spans a small river.
2. James H. Floyd State Park: Dine lakeside at tables, under shelters, or beneath the willow trees. Kids will love the nearby playground, feeding the ducks, and renting a pedal boat.
3. Dowdell’s Knob overlook in F.D. Roosevelt State Park: A favorite picnic spot of FDR’s, enjoy the beautiful view of the Pine Mountain valley. There’s a spot saved for you on a bench next to a bronze statue of the president.
4. Seminole State Park: Find the perfect spot under shady trees on the shores of Lake Seminole. Then stroll the boardwalk or take a dip at the sandy swimming beach.
5. Fort McAllister State Park: Spread your blanket and basket out on the banks
of the Ogeechee River under the live oaks. Just a short walk from where Sherman ended his March to the Sea, you can explore the cannons, earthworks, and an underground bunkhouse.
If you need a little more room, remember that you can reserve an open-air picnic shelter or an air-conditioned group shelter for special occasions at Georgia State Parks.
Northeast Mountains
Must Try Treat
The cashew coconut brittle at Paul Thomas Chocolates in Dahlonega is made with cashews roasted in brown sugar and rolled into a layer of coconut.
Homegrown Product
Sorghum, similar to sugar cane, is indigenous to the region and is made into sweet sorghum syrup that can be found at farms and markets, like Jaemor Farms in Alto. Don’t miss the Blairsville Sorghum Festival the second and third weekends in October. Festivities include syrup making, a biscuit-eating contest, and a square dance.
Get Your Hands Dirty
Learn about subsistence farming in this region during the late 1800s and early 1900s at the Byron Herbert Reece Farm and Heritage Center. Just south of Blairsville, this unique site traces the day-to-day experiences of Reece—a poet, novelist, and farmer—and his family with exhibits on raising hogs, gardening, and equipment of the time, along with insights into the inspiration behind Reece’s poetry.
Fun Food Fact
North Georgia’s climate is similar to Italy, making it ideal for growing coveted European vinefera grapes, such as Touriga Nacional, Viognier, and Tannat. Visit the vineyards and sample some of these Georgian wines at Tiger Mountain Vineyards in Rabun County.
