Meat and three at Walnut Hills restaurant

In the

cuisine of the Southern United States The cuisine of the Southern United States encompasses diverse food traditions of several regions, including Tidewater, Appalachian, Lowcountry, Cajun, Creole, and Floribbean cuisine. In recent history, elements of Southern cuisine have sprea ...

, a meat and three

restaurant A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...

is one where the customer picks one meat from a daily selection of three to six choices (such as

fried chicken Fried chicken, also known as Southern fried chicken, is a dish consisting of chicken pieces that have been coated with seasoned flour or batter and pan-fried, deep fried, pressure fried, or air fried. The breading adds a crisp coating or ...

country ham Country ham is a variety of heavily salted ham preserved by curing and smoking, associated with the cuisine of the Southern United States. Production Country hams are salt-cured (with or without nitrites) for one to three months. They are usual ...

beef Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle (''Bos taurus''). In prehistoric times, humankind hunted aurochs and later domesticated them. Since that time, numerous breeds of cattle have been bred specifically for the quality or quantity ...

country-fried steak Chicken-fried steak, also known as country-fried steak or CFS, is an American breaded cutlet dish consisting of a piece of beefsteak (most often tenderized cube steak) coated with seasoned flour and either deep-fried or pan-fried. It is sometim ...

meatloaf Meatloaf is a dish of ground meat that has been combined with other ingredients and formed into the shape of a loaf, then baked or smoked. The final shape is either hand-formed on a baking tray, or pan-formed by cooking it in a loaf pan. It ...

, or

pork chop A pork chop, like other meat chops, is a loin cut taken perpendicular to the spine of the pig and is usually a rib or part of a vertebra. Pork chops are unprocessed and leaner than other cuts. Chops are commonly served as an individual portio ...

) and three

side dish A side dish, sometimes referred to as a side order, side item, or simply a side, is a food item that accompanies the entrée or main course at a meal.vegetable Vegetables are parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. The original meaning is still commonly used and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including the flowers, fruits, stems, ...

potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...

es,

corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 Nanometre, nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by ...

lima bean A lima bean (''Phaseolus lunatus''), also commonly known as the butter bean, sieva bean, double bean, Madagascar bean, or wax bean is a legume grown for its edible seeds or beans. Origin and uses ''Phaseolus lunatus'' is found in Meso- and Sou ...

s, but also other selections such as

gelatin Gelatin or gelatine (from la, gelatus meaning "stiff" or "frozen") is a translucent, colorless, flavorless food ingredient, commonly derived from collagen taken from animal body parts. It is brittle when dry and rubbery when moist. It may also ...

creamed corn Creamed corn (which is also known by other names, such as cream style sweet corn) is a type of creamed vegetable dish made by combining pieces of whole sweetcorn with a soupy liquid of milky residue from pulped corn kernels scraped from the cob ...

macaroni and cheese Macaroni and cheese (also called mac and cheese in Canada and the United States and macaroni cheese in the United Kingdom BBC, RecipesMacaroni Cheese/ref>) is a dish of cooked macaroni pasta and a cheese sauce, most commonly Cheddar sauce. The ...

spaghetti Spaghetti () is a long, thin, solid, cylindrical pasta.spaghetti
Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridg ...

, or even a dessert). A meat-and-three meal is often served with

cornbread Cornbread is a quick bread made with cornmeal, associated with the cuisine of the Southern United States, with origins in Native American cuisine. It is an example of batter bread. Dumplings and pancakes made with finely ground cornmeal are st ...

and

sweet tea Sweet tea, also known as sweet iced tea, is a popular style of iced tea commonly consumed in countries such as the United States (especially the South) and Indonesia. Sweet tea is most commonly made by adding sugar or simple syrup to black tea e ...

. Meat and three is popular throughout the United States, but its roots can be traced to

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

and its capital of

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

. The phrase has been described as implying "glorious vittles served with utmost informality." It is also associated with

soul food Soul food is an ethnic cuisine traditionally prepared and eaten by African Americans, originating in the Southern United States.Soul Food originated with the foods that were given to enslaved Black people by their white owners on Souther ...

. Similar concepts include the Hawaiian

plate lunch The plate lunch ( haw, pā mea ʻai) is a quintessentially Hawaiian meal, roughly analogous to Southern U.S. meat-and-threes. However, the pan-Asian influence on Hawaiian cuisine, and its roots in the Japanese bento, make the plate lunch uniqu ...

, which features a variety of

entrée An entrée (, ; ) in modern French table service and that of much of the English-speaking world (apart from the United States and parts of Canada) is a dish served before the main course of a meal. Outside North America, it is generally synony ...

choices but typically has standardized side items, and the southern Louisiana plate lunch, which features menu options that change daily. It is somewhat similar to a

blue-plate special A blue-plate special is a discount-priced meal that usually changes daily: a term used in the United States and Canada by restaurants, especially diners and cafes. The term was very common from the 1920s through the 1950s. , there are still a ...

but with a more fixed menu.

Boston Market Boston Market Corporation, known as Boston Chicken until 1995, is an American fast casual restaurant chain headquartered in Golden, Colorado. It is owned by the Rohan Group. Boston Market has its greatest presence in the Northeastern and Midweste ...

and

Cracker Barrel Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc., doing business as simply Cracker Barrel, is an American chain of restaurant and gift stores with a Southern country theme. The company was founded by Dan Evins in 1969. Its first store was in Lebanon, T ...

chains of restaurants offers a similar style of food selection.

References

Sources

* * * * * {{Meals_navbox Cuisine of the Southern United States Restaurants by type Restaurant terminology Culture of Nashville, Tennessee Food combinations

See also

References

Sources