VIRGINIA - When outsiders think of Virginia cuisine, they typically picture elegant oyster roasts, fluffy Southern biscuits, or a perfectly glazed holiday ham. But if you step off the manicured colonial estates and dig into the Commonwealth's deep rural, coastal, and Appalachian history, you will find a menu that requires a bit more culinary courage.
To Virginians, these dishes are deeply rooted historical traditions and beloved comfort foods. To the uninitiated tourist, they sound—and often look—completely bizarre.
Here is a breakdown of the most wonderfully weird and outwardly disgusting things you can eat in the Old Dominion.
1. Peanut Soup
Virginia is famous for its peanuts, particularly in the southeastern part of the state around Suffolk. But while most of the country is perfectly happy eating them roasted or turned into butter, Virginians have a long history of boiling them into a savory, hot soup.
- Why outsiders hate it: It plays with your brain in the worst way. Visually, it looks like a murky bowl of dishwater or melted, watered-down peanut butter. Taking a spoonful of something that smells like a PB&J but tastes like a hot, salty, onion-heavy broth is completely counterintuitive to most palates.
- Why locals love it: It is incredibly rich and deeply rooted in the State African American culinary traditions, brought over by enslaved Africans and adapted in colonial kitchens. When made correctly with chicken broth, celery, onions, and cream, it is a luxurious, savory, and warming winter soup.
2. Brunswick Stew
Step into Southside Virginia in the fall, and you will find massive cast-iron cauldrons of Brunswick Stew simmering over open fires at every Church fundraiser and community gathering. Today, it is usually made with chicken or pulled pork, corn, lima beans, and tomatoes, all cooked down for hours. But historically? It was made with whatever small game you could shoot—most notably, squirrel.
- Why outsiders hate it: Even without the squirrel meat, a true Brunswick stew is cooked for so long that all the ingredients break down into a thick, homogenous, beige-and-brown glop. It is not pretty to look at, and the lingering lore of "squirrel stew" is enough to make tourists politely decline a bowl.
- Why locals love it: The long, slow cooking process allows the meat's smoky flavors to infuse the sweet corn and acidic tomatoes fully. It is the ultimate communal comfort food, designed to feed a massive crowd on a crisp autumn day.
3. Chitterlings (Chitlins)
Deeply embedded in Southern and Appalachian foodways, chitterlings are the boiled intestines of a pig. In rural Virginia, hog-killing time in the late fall meant absolutely no part of the animal went to waste, and chitlins became a staple of resourcefulness and soul food tradition.
- Why outsiders hate it: Everything about them is an acquired tolerance. They look like a pile of pale, greyish-white rubber bands. Worse than the appearance is the preparation—boiling chitlins produces an incredibly pungent, earthy, and unmistakable odor that can clear a house of anyone not accustomed to it.
- Why locals love it: It is a labor of love. Cleaning and cooking them takes hours of meticulous work. When boiled until tender and heavily splashed with hot sauce and apple cider vinegar, they offer a rich, fatty chew that connects modern eaters directly to their ancestors' culinary resilience.
4. Moldy Country Ham
If you buy a genuine, traditionally cured Virginia country ham (like those famous from Smithfield), you are not getting a plump, pink, wet ham from the grocery store cooler. You are getting a rock-hard, unrefrigerated leg of pork that is covered in a thick layer of fuzzy white and green mold.
- Why outsiders hate it: It looks completely spoiled. You literally have to scrub the mold off the meat in the sink with a stiff brush before you can even begin the days-long process of soaking and boiling it to make it edible. Even when cooked, the meat is incredibly dense, chewy, and aggressively salty.
- Why locals love it: That mold is a sign of a perfect dry-aging process, much like a fine cheese. Once scrubbed, soaked, and sliced razor-thin, the ruby-red meat has a complex, nutty, and intensely savory flavor that pairs perfectly with a soft, buttery Southern biscuit.
5. Salt-Roe Herring
Before the days of avocado toast, a traditional breakfast along Virginia's tidal rivers (like the Rappahannock and the James) consisted of heavily salted herring served completely whole—bones, egg sacks (roe), and all.
- Why outsiders hate it: Waking up at 7:00 AM to stare down a whole, pungent, intensely salty fish, complete with its grainy egg sacks, is a lot to ask of a modern stomach. Navigating the tiny, sharp pin-bones before you've even had your coffee feels more like a chore than a meal.
- Why locals love it: Before modern refrigeration, packing the spring herring run in salt was how coastal Virginians survived the rest of the year. Fried in a skillet, the roe becomes rich and crispy, and the sweetness of a side of hot, buttery cornbread or scrambled eggs perfectly balances the fish's intense saltiness.
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