When I grew up in Eastern Arkansas, my mother used to cook braised lamb shanks, white beans and kale cooked with salt pork. She said this was a traditional meal that her family used to cook on New Year's day in southern France where she grew up.
Before any of you turn up noses at the mention of French food, a quick note. Traditional french cooking uses method and spices to prepare good meals from cheap cuts of meat and every organ of the animal. I share your view of 'haute cuisene' or French nouvelle that is served in most restaurants in the US that fancy that they cook French food. Any and all of you would enjoy the cooking of a housewife or grandmother in any small town or village away from the big cities.
Her cooking made our house very popular with schoolmates and neighbors. On of my favorite meals was called cassoulet. It was traditional where she grew up in a small village. The housewife would save all the meat scraps from week day meals. On saturday morning, she would put all these meat scraps(in our house we ate mallards, venison, squirrel and rabbit on a regular basis) and pork sausage and cover with large white beans and chicken broth. The dish would go in the oven for several hours. Then she would sprinkle bread crumbs on top and cook uncovered in a hot oven until there was a half inch of crust on top. .
We ate this with fresh homemade bread and sweet tea. Mighty fine eating. I grew up enjoying the best of southern food from both the US and France.
She could also cook a whole kid goat or venison shoulder that would bring tears to your eyes when you first tasted how good it was
