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Floridians just aren't interested in farming. That's the primary issue. There is plenty of land available, but too few willing to do the work. The state is FULL of abandoned citrus groves.
Citrus farming is a different animal given how long it takes to get a tree to grow large enough and bear enough fruit to be profitable. As climate change has taken hold in FL, much of the state not previously susceptible to hard freezes lost millions of acres of producing orange groves and the losses exceeded insurance payouts leading to selling off of land to developers.
An especially destructive freeze hit in 1985. North of Orlando, above where State Road 50 cuts an east-west path across the peninsula, many citrus groves went out of business.
A newspaper headline lamented, “For some growers, 1985 was the last straw.” (Many former groves were sold off for housing developments for that area’s fast-growing population). An Associated Press report said “The freeze turned oranges rock-hard in groves as far south as Palm Beach.
Still another bad freeze, Dec. 22-26, 1989, wiped out 30% of Florida’s citrus crop and Gov. Bob Martinez declared all 67 counties disaster areas. Parts of northern Florida got three inches of snow. Temperatures dropped to 8 degrees in High Springs, 21 in St. Augustine and 30 in Miami.
Longtime local residents undoubtedly can recall other episodes of frigid weather. After each disastrous freeze, farmers and grove owners have tried to move farther south, hoping to keep their crops beyond winter’s grip.
If one knows of the town of Frostproof in southern Polk County, founded on the quaint notion it was too far south for hard freezes and was at the heart of the Citrus industry along the Lake Wales Ridge/US27, and where the "skeletal" remains of orange trees are still evident beyond the reach still of developers.
I guess chicken fried steak, but I would've considered it just southern food.
Chicken Fried Steak is not southern.
Oklahoma and Texas are always fighting over the claim to chicken fried steak. Texans claim it came with the German settlers to central Texas. Lamesa, Tx claims it was invented there. Oklahomans claim that it might not have been Oklahoma that invented it but it was Oklahoma that first made it a staple meal in restaurants and home kitchens.
So somebody actually researched it. And the first state to have a place to actually advertise "chicken fried steak" was Colorado. Then Kansas, then Oklahoma and Nebraska. The first mention of CFS in Texas was in 1932.
Linguica & cheese roll
Malasadas
Pasteis de Nata
Blount clam chowder (they make Legal Seafood chowder, among others)
Fish & chips made with fresh cod
Baked scrod (small cod or haddock filet)
Fried clams
Seared scallops
Stuffed quahogs
Clam cakes
Coffee frappe
What food is your state famous for. For my current state (North Carolina) it's fried okra, Carolina burger, and or bbq sauces.
Fried okra is incredible. I don't remember having it before moving to NC many years ago, but it's a combination made in heaven.
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