Lowcountry food on a riverboat

What the ticket says

The ticket describes the dinner as a buffet in the Southern style, made with local ingredients. It does not list the dishes in a way you should rely on, and a buffet can change from night to night, so the crew on the evening is the guide to what is out. What this guide offers is context: what Southern cooking on the Georgia coast is, where a famous dish comes from and how to enjoy a buffet on a boat.

What Lowcountry means

Shrimp and grits is associated with Lowcountry cuisine, eaten in coastal Georgia and South Carolina. The Lowcountry itself is a geographic and cultural region along South Carolina's coast, with salt marshes and coastal waterways, and its communities include the Gullah Geechee people. Savannah lies on the neighbouring Georgia coast, approximately 20 miles upriver from the Atlantic Ocean, so the dish and its cooking belong to the same stretch of shoreline.

Shrimp and grits

The dish combines sautéed shrimp with grits, a porridge of boiled cornmeal. Historically in the region it was often eaten as breakfast during shrimp season, which peaks around November, and the shrimp were invariably small and taken from creeks. Today it is eaten as a comfort food in the southern United States. Preparations range from shrimp sautéed in butter to richer restaurant versions with a sauce made from reduced shrimp-shell stock.

Modern versions

Preparations of shrimp and grits range widely. The simplest only sauté the shrimp with butter, while more complicated versions draw on nouvelle cuisine and involve a sauce made from reduced shrimp-shell stock. A buffet tray is more likely to sit at the comfort-food end of that range than at the chef's-plate end, but the crew is the guide on the night.

The Gullah Geechee roots

One food writer credits the development of shrimp and grits to the Gullah Geechee people, a group of enslaved Africans brought to South Carolina to farm rice. The writer says the earliest versions were Gullah Geechee preparations of fried shrimp, coated with flour, salt and pepper, served with a roux and grains such as rice, millet or corn. Names included shrimp gravy and breakfast shrimps, and the dish has had several names over time.

How to read a riverboat buffet

A buffet puts the choice with you. Walk the line once before you load a plate, take small portions of the dishes you do not know and go back for the ones you like. Some travellers say the dishes could be hotter, so go when the trays are freshly filled and eat while the food is warm. Alcoholic drinks are sold separately on board, and tips are not included in the ticket.

If you have dietary needs

The ticket does not list dietary options, so put your question to the operator before you book, not on the night. That includes vegetarian eating, allergies and any religious requirement. If the answer is unclear, the sunset cruise is a lighter alternative, with food and drink sold at an onboard bar and grill, and no dinner is included. The booking guide compares the three evenings side by side.

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