The Quest for Rocking Southern Food

(Posted a bit after I got home, sorry!) 

Since leaving New Orleans, I have been on a quest for rocking Southern food. I have tried Church's Fried Chicken, The Cracker Barrel, Little Tea Shop in Memphis and Southern Bred in Nashville. 

I love questing for Southern food because it is so foreign to my Bay Area understanding of food.  Sure, I have had fried chicken and macaroni and cheese.  However, fried chicken and mac and cheese did not prepare me for the wealth of previously unheard of dishes. 

One example of Southern food leaving me wildly confused is breakfast at the Cracker Barrel in Jackson.  The basis of a Cracker Barrel breakfast is eggs, gravy, biscuits, and grits.  How are these four things meant to be eaten?  Up until now, I thought that gravy was a sauce.  However, I received a bowl of gravy.  Was the chef trying to tell me to eat it as soup?  And what is the deal with grits?  Are they meant to take the place of hash browns and be mixed with eggs and catsup?  Should I have treated them like Cream of Wheat and added sugar and butter?  In the end, none of this matters.  The biscuits were the best I have ever had.  Buttery, flakey, with a kick of buttermilk sour; I would eat these not just with every meal but for every meal. 

Another moment of Southern food confusion was the broccoli puff at the Little Tea Shop in Memphis.  After a couple weeks on the road, The Little Tea Shop’s three veggie plate called to me from the other side of Memphis.  The turnip greens were amazing; briny, warm, and comforting.  The broccoli puff, however, left me a bit boggled.  In defense of both puff and Tea House, I ordered the thing without any idea of what it might be.  I imagined, perhaps, a pasty like “puff” pastry or something soufflé-like because soufflés “puff” up while cooking.  What I received was somewhere between cheesy broccoli and cream of broccoli soup with chewy bits that might have been egg.  I don’t know if I lacked the context to appreciate the broccoli puff (as I’m sure was the case with grits) or if even someone who grew up with broccoli puffs would have turned this one down.  Oh well, one tragically off moment in an otherwise delicious and satisfying quest is not enough to slow me down.  I moved on to Nashville and the delight that was Southern Bred.

Southern Bred has been my favorite southern restaurant so far.  In fact, I may call my quest quits after tonight because I don’t know if it can get better.  The meal started with a trio of warm breads with butter.  After a day exploring Andrew Jackson’s house and grounds in the rain, nothing could have been better.  Our Fried Green Tomato starter arrived shortly after the breads.  It left me with a loyalty problem.  Before embarking on this journey, I worked at Nibblers, the most amazing restaurant in the Bay. Chef Daniel’s Fried Green Tomatoes were one of my favorite dishes on the menu and were topped with a red tomato salsa which was excellent.  However, these were served with ranch dressing which added a grungy, eat-with-your-hands snack food element to the experience.  Is it wrong to like another chef’s tomatoes?   It feels wrong.  I was mostly full by the time the mains arrived and while it was all delicious, I experienced the food in a warm, full, happy haze that makes remembering or describing it challenging.  My mother and I did, however, sneak some cinnamon rolls back to our room.  We swore up and down that we would save them for breakfast the next morning.  Nope.  No way.  The rolls were gone by midnight.  I blame my mother entirely, pastry pusher that she is.

So that’s it.  No more Southern food quest.  My food expectations have been challenged and perfection has been attained.

My French Quarter Fling

Before I left on this trip, everyone I spoke to warned me of something.  My friends, family, and even people I had never met were concerned for my well-being.  Some worried that my car would break down.  Others worried that I would be attacked.  A few even mentioned bed bugs!  My family was nervous that I would fall in love with some cowboy and never come home.

 So far, I have been fine.  My car has not broken down.  I have not been attacked.  There have been no bed bugs.  However, I have fallen in love and I may not come home.

Crawfish.  More tender than shrimp with all the sweetness and flavor, I am in love with crawfish.  I discovered them first at Fish Daddy’s in Pfluggerville, TX.  Call me snobby, but I did not expect to find anything worth eating at a restaurant called Fish Daddy’s in a place called Pfluggerville.  The Crawfish Club Salad was amazing.  Later, I was dragged to a tourist trap of a restaurant in the French Quarter in New Orleans.  The restaurant is located on the edge of the French Quarter and was half empty at six pm on a Friday night.  Under no circumstances did I believe the food could possibly be good.  It wasn’t.  However, the crawfish cream sauce rocked.  Finally, at my last creole restaurant in New Orleans, I had a Crawfish Etouffee which was also delicious. 

In Louisiana, a person can buy fresh crawfish at Walmart.  Growing up in the Bay Area, I had never seen crawfish on a menu.  I love crawfish and I don’t think I can go home.       

Rules of a Cool Sandwich

White Wheat or Rye.

What kind of Chips.

We said, “No separate checks” Do your own math.

Bison Witches.  Buy Sandwiches. . . Say it Fast.

No, we don’t checks.

Please, wait outside.

Wait!! The tables is still Dirty!  Let us wipe it down before you sit down.

No Complaining.

Reading over the rules at Bison Witches in Tuscon, Arizona, I worried, had I broken one already?

These rules were printed in the center of the menu.  Covered in posters for local events, the Bison Witches door was hard to find.  The restaurant was dark and loud.    Clearly, this restaurant was cool.  Maybe, it was too cool for me.  The restaurant doesn’t need me and it was not really sure if it wanted me, either.

Wait!  I am the customer.  The question shouldn’t be whether the restaurant wants me but whether I want the restaurant.  I settled in to decide.  The menu has a nice selection of soups, salads, and sandwiches.  The beef and brie sandwich and the cheddar soup both called to me but I settled on the meatball sandwich at the server’s recommendation.

The meatball sandwich was good.  A mouth-filling, soft bun was smothered in marinara, stuffed with soft, savory meatballs, and sprinkled with fresh basil.  It was a good meatball sandwich.  It was even a better meatball sandwich than the one from Quiznos, but not by much.

Is it worth spending extra money on a good but not great meatball sandwich because it came from someplace cool?

Sometimes, I scorn trends as companies playing on a person’s insecurities to sell a product.  Other times, I love trends for giving people an outlet for creative self-expression.  You are what you eat; but, very few people are aware of what you eat.  Therefore, is eating a legitimate form of self-expression?

I don’t know.  However, if I were to express myself through a sandwich, it would be one from Bison Witch.

To Start: A Confession

My keyboard is sticky. In itself, this is not worthy of a confession. I eat around my computer all the time. For example, the previous laptop was drowned by a particularly aggressive batch of Tomato Bisque.

Today, however, my laptop is coated with hot pink marshmallow gunk. Undeniable evidence that I have been snacking on Hostess Snowballs. So, I am forced to make a confession; this road trip may have been an elaborate scheme to give up yoga and eat more snack food.

I started with good intentions. I had visions of myself visiting restaurants of noteworthy chefs, exploring new takes on classic dishes, and finally giving up my aversion to fusion food. I even promised my therapist that I would look for yoga studios along my route.

Gooey, pink, coated in marshmallow and filled with chocolate cake, the Hostess snowball is perfect, playful food. It is impossible to take oneself too seriously when eating a Snowball. A Snowball is the perfect antidote for IMAISNPAWTCTRAGI syndrome (Its midnight and I’m still not packed and was this crazy trip really a good idea syndrome).

Hail Marys? Big plates of steaming kale? What should my penance be?