Down-home describes the simple, warm, country way of living — the food, the talk, the music, the feeling of being among ordinary people, not city show. It is especially tied to the southern United States. Down-home cooking is hearty and tastes like home; a down-home welcome is plain and friendly. Though actually, this is an American word; British people do not use it much, and adverts sometimes put it on a packet to sell 'simple country' as a feeling. It is a compliment: it praises that unshowy, homelike way, and it is not an insult meaning 'unsophisticated' in a cruel sense — though city people can use it with a little nostalgia, as if the country were a story.