[cglace]

Actually, the limited vegetables and fried everything happened much later. Before and after the civil war(up until modern times) southerners ate much more and a wider variety of vegetables. Vegetables were simply cheaper and more widely available than meat.

[LyndsySimon]

> Vegetables were simply cheaper and more widely available than meat.

Right... and therefore, people might have developed a cultural and perhaps even physiological preference for those foods composed of and derived from animal products. Hence, meat and fried foods.