Exactly, but don't forget the country gravy with zero meat and zero taste, and the sloppy, gooey 'hash brown casserole' instead of nice crispy hashbrowns or homefries.

While I have no personal knowledge of this, the grits are probably not prepared, they probably arrive frozen in a bag and are reheated.

I am convinced (after only one try) that the "Hash Brown Casserole" is a result of secret, rejected and unfortunate experiements in 1941 by the company which provided canned C Ration foods to the US Military.

As a mere boy, I learned to make "Cream"/Country gravy, a Southern standard. The version produced by CB comes from a mix produced by one of the world's leading suppliers of wallpaper paste.

God forgives most sins, but not poorly prepared grits (and folks who eat "instant' or "quick" grits are greasing their pathways to Hell). While sugared cornbread may keep a soul long in Purgatory, serving unsalted grits insures a rapid irreversible descent into the Pit.

I would not even accuse CB of that felonious custom. I've seen pre-prepped Polenta at the suppermarket, almost inexplicable, but a cup of grits weighs only a couple of ounces, stores on a shelf indefinitiely, and expands to feed four people.

I will admit to coming from a household in which grits were considered a "savory" dish, requiring butter, runny eggs, pan juices, gravy, bits of sidemeat, even cheese, but never served with any sweeteners, while corn meal mush, now rarely encountered, even in the frozen North, always came with eaither sorghum or cane syrup. One assumes that the Bostonnais would have never developed "Indian Puddling" unless they had experienced substantial Southern exposure.

Little known secret... I do this anytime I have breakfast there... I always replace the hashbrown casserole with "nice crispy hashbrowns". Their hashbrowns are really, really good if you like that... :)

Not many people know they offer that option.

Why do I feel like the Executive Chef of the Cracker Barrel isn't a FTer and is not available to either confirm nor deny this?

What?? They have a secret menu like In-N-Out?:D

The next time I am dragged kicking and screaming into CB, I will take note.;)

One assumes incorrectly...

Indian pudding is a corn based version of English "hasty pudding," cracked or broken grains boiled or simmered in milk until soft. Making of hasty pudding w/ Indian corn is recorded in diaries of the Plimoth colony in the first generation of settlement... apparently independent of any southern influence.

Was your irony meter inactivated during your last browsing session?

You must admit the Pilgrims' Indian pudding must have seemed a bit savory until the first barrel of molasses arrived from the Islands. Maybe they used maple syrup. I can envision it now, molasses casks being unloaded on the long Wharf in Boston to the harbormaster's cry: "That one to Durgin Park for Indian puddling, the t'other to the distillery to further degenerate and deprave the Injuns!"

Agree.

I would go to Denny's before Cracker Barrel, and I hate Dennys...

Take it from one that has a habit of a little more than enough to drink the night before, I am an expert at fast cheap breakfast. CB is a distent third to Denny's. Number one in by book is Waffle House for the following reasons:

*Fast
*Cheap
*Fairly good food
*Waitstaff just out of Huntsville lockup with a tattooed tear under the eye eager to please
*Crispy hashbrowns with assorted 'fixen's' chili, cheese, onion etc
*You WILL be the prettiest one there
*Never had an attitiude going in with partner as my people seem to get at CB. Seems to be ingrained in the corportate culture.
*If your battery goes dead there will be a trucker with a jump close by
*The food cures what ever ails you from the sins of the previous night

I believe that you have, as they say in the vernacular, nailed it. Although you may be accused, I am sure unfairly, of not being used to comfort food ;)

The tear tattoo under the eye is the clincher by the way ^ But I didnt think people like that ever got out in Texas. :)

Never had better anywhere else. :D^