Discover a range of cuisines on your holidays in Florida

Although well known for fast food, America has a strong history of gourmet cooking and can offer a range of regional cuisines. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the multicultural Sunshine State. Whether you are on your holidays in Florida or are thinking of buying a Florida home, you will soon discover a range of new flavours drawn from Cuban, Caribbean, Cajun and Creole traditions. Undoubtedly tasty, there is a downside. In some Florida restaurants (and in some Florida homes, too), quantity rather than quality tends to be the first consideration.

Meal routines in a typical Florida home

The daily eating routine in a typical Florida home is pretty similar to that in the rest of the United States and the UK. Breakfast is a fairly light meal consisting of fruit, yoghurt and cereal in a health conscious household, or a fry up with grits in a Florida home where the state’s heart disease statistics are ignored. The latter is the traditional breakfast of the American South and is available throughout the day in many Florida restaurants.

Lunch is eaten 12:00-14:00, and dinner in the home is usually eaten between 18:00 and 20:00. Florida restaurants in city locations usually serve until 22:00. Dinner is the main meal of the day for most people and typically consists of meat or fish with vegetables and a dessert.

Perhaps the most striking differences between the daily eating routine of a Florida home and a British home are that most meals in the Sunshine State can be enjoyed out of doors (and most people who buy a Florida home consider this an enormous luxury) and they are also served in enormous portions.

Florida restaurants, cafes and bars

Florida restaurants are typically open for lunch 11:00-14:30 and for dinner 17:00-23:00 but early bird dinners (16:00-18:00) are often offered in areas with a marked retired population. Bars tend to be open from 16:00-2:00.

Prices vary considerably across the state and between establishments but costs in pleasant, unpretentious neighbourhood restaurants will probably be as follows: full breakfast offering $5-10; lunch $10-15; dinner $15-25 without drinks or tips. In fancy or fashionable Florida restaurants in swish locations, these bills could easily be doubled.

Tipping is expected in Florida for all served meals (not fast food). You will find sales tax is added to Florida restaurant bills but a service charge is not. A tip of 15-20% is expected, even if the service was distinctly average!

Food in Florida – state specialities

Citrus fruit is the classic speciality of Florida. Grapefruits, blood oranges, apples, limes, lemons, kumquats, apricots, mangos, nectarines… you name it, if it’s citrus you are likely to see these fruits growing plump and juicy as you travel around on your holidays in Florida. They also feature strongly in Florida restaurant menus, sometimes in surprisingly imaginative forms.

While the east (Atlantic) coast of Florida tends to rely heavily on meat and fish, vegetarians and the health conscious generally get a better deal on the west (Gulf of Mexico) coast. Apart from that, the main distinction you are likely to come across while on your holidays in Florida is that big cities tend to cater to more sophisticated palates while rural areas seem stuck in the deep-fried school of cooking.

• Key Lime Pie: The small key lime fruit is indigenous to Florida and features in everything from lemonade to this popular custardy dessert. Despite the name, it is yellow so if you see green key lime pie, you will know it is not made from real key limes! It is sometimes served with meringue or whipped cream.
• Crab cakes. Stone crab claws (only one per crab) are harvested only in winter. These crabmeat patties are delicious served with tangy dips.
• Plantain: Although they look like bananas, plantains are less sweet and a little starchier. They are fried and served alongside Latin and Cuban meat dishes with rice and beans.
• Seafood dishes feature heavily in restaurant menus, especially with citrus sauces.
• Grits: Popular in north Florida, grits is a splodge of white corn porridge served with butter and sometimes eaten alongside fried bacon and eggs for breakfast. You’ll love it or hate it.
• Cajun chicken/shrimp: from Louisiana’s bayou region, these dishes are prepared in a tomato-based sauce that includes celery, garlic, onion and peppers.
• Cajun chicken/shrimp: from Louisiana’s bayou region, these dishes are prepared in a tomato-based sauce that includes celery, garlic, onion and peppers.
• Jamaican jerk dishes: Caribbean dishes featuring chicken or beef or fish marinated in hot, hot, hot sauces and grilled.
• Guarapo: a non-alcoholic sugar cane juice which is often added to cocktails and blended fruit shakes.
• Cuban sandwich: This features layers of sliced pork or ham, cheese and pickles which melt together when grilled on French bread.
• Alligator nuggets or medallions: Yep, real gator meat taken from the tail. Deep fried or marinated and grilled.

Buying food and drink for your Florida home

Sooner or later you are sure to want to try out some of the local dishes in your Florida home. Publix is the dominant grocery chain in Florida with more than 640 stores across the state. It also has four Hispanic themed outlets called Publix Sabor, which will be handy if you want to try a Cuban or Latin recipe. Walmart has over 100 outlets, while Albertsons has a sprinkling of stores in the bigger cities.

Bear the outside temperature in mind when buying frozen foods from a supermarket; if you are in the south in the middle of summer, the food will defrost before you get it back to your Florida home, so take a cold bag with you!

If you are particularly health conscious, you might prefer to buy your seasonal vegetables at one of the 70 Community Farmers’ Markets held across the state. Each one reflects the charm of its locale and sells locally produced specialties directly to the public. Details of the markets closest to your Florida home can be found on www.fl-ag.com, together with a vast election of Floridian recipes.

Drink plenty when on your holidays in Florida

If you are unaccustomed to relentless hot weather, you could easily become dehydrated on your holidays in Florida. Make a point of drinking a lot more liquid than you would normally do in the UK. This is important, even if you stay inside your Florida home with the air conditioning at full pelt! Water is the best option, but there are also many other tempting soft drinks available. Americans drink coffee rather than tea, and it is available in a phenomenal range of flavours. Among the strongest are Cuban coffees. When they do drink tea, Floridians usually opt for iced tea served with mint or lemon.

Frozen or heavily iced drinks are the norm, especially for citrus fruit drinks served in imaginative concoctions. Watch out for the addition of calorie-laden guarapo in seemingly healthy fruit mixes.

While California is the best-known wine growing area of the USA, Florida does produce a small amount of its own wines. In keeping with its citrus fruit tradition, some of these are exotic fruit wines. Depending on when you take your holidays in Florida, you may see some of this produce being harvested as you explore the state. But Californian, European and New World wines are readily available in Florida restaurants and bars and you can usually find a good selection in the bigger supermarkets near your Florida home. American beer is considerably lighter than that sold in the UK.