Lowcountry cuisine

While it shares features with Southern cooking, its geography, economics, demographics, and culture pushed its culinary identity in a different direction from regions above the Fall Line.

More generous accounts argue that the region extends further north and west, including all of the Atlantic coastal plain of South Carolina and Georgia.

The geography is a critical factor in distinguishing the region's culinary identity from interior areas of the South.

The rich estuary system provides an abundance of shrimp, fish, crabs, and oysters that were not available to non-coastal regions prior to refrigeration.

The marshlands of South Carolina also proved conducive to growing rice, and grain became a major part of the everyday diet.