Good country southern cooks tended to fry everything the same way, more or less, I think.
You see stuff on the web about frying things like squirrel using buttermilk marinade, Cajun seasoning, and making buttermilk gravy.
I never heard of that. I have heard of buttermilk biscuits, and pancakes, but not usually gravy. They used milk if they wanted a white gravy.
My grandmother made great fried food, beef, pork, chicken, duck, fish (crappy catfish bass etc.), squirrel, quail, doves, venison, wild hog, etc. It was all fried the same way as I recall. Maybe fish had a somewhat different additional treatment with cornmeal....not always.
My mother, who grew up in that tradition, fried chicken in a covered cast iron skillet. It used less oil, could be cooked at lower temperature re burning, and the pieces turned halfway through.
I would do the gravy in a French way, sautee onions and then garlic, provencal herbs, white wine reduction, etc., and do sourdough biscuits, if any. But that is not basic Southern cooking.
Gravy was usually thickened of course with flour, and it was given volume with water most times. It was already rich enough, after all. We never did gravy with fish, as I recall. Hushpuppies.
My grandfather, a knowledgeable southern gourmand, favored fried squirrel brain. He cracked the skulls with a nutcracker my grandmother set the table with.
http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2010/11/re-is-squirrel-perfect-austerity-dish.html
The problem is I don't have a recipe.
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