Southern Belly
Page 31
Nowadays, origin points to the contrary, barbecue stands are the most heralded limeade spots. Bill’s Barbecue, in business since 1930 and now boasting a half-dozen or so locations, has its advocates. So does Dunn’s Bar-B-Que, smoking pigs since 1935. To be frank, I’ve never been as keen on their minced barbecue sandwiches. But their limeades—well, that’s another matter. No other drink refreshes quite as well, in my humble opinion, and recalling lesser limeades of my childhood past, I’m thinking it’s the fizzy water that makes the difference.
BILL’S BARBECUE / 927 MYERS STREET / 804-358-7763
Roanoke
ROANOKE CITY MARKET
There was a time not too long past when come Saturday morning you could stroll down to the courthouse square of most any Southern town and buy a basket of squash, a mess of greens, or a tray of tomatoes from one of the farmers who had made the drive in from the country before dawn to sell homegrown produce from the gate of their old pickup, or stacked high on a flimsy table cobbled together from scrap two-by-fours.
Few are the cities that allow such entrepreneurial activity these days. Sure, there are a few storied city markets like Montgomery Alabama’s Curb Market and Atlanta Georgia’s Municipal Market, but they are indoor gatherings. Roanoke’s City Market is still, for the most part, a fair weather, outdoor affair. And since 1882 when twenty-five hucksters obtained their vending licenses, folks have been peddling the bounty of the land in the very heart of the city along narrow streets framed by redbrick buildings. On my last visit, summer was giving way to fall, and the stalls were piled high with copper-colored local chestnuts, Stayman apples, Seckel pears, blushing yellow Rambo apples, flats of Bent Mountain tomatoes and wood slat baskets filled to overflowing with loose leaves of dusky mustard, kale, and rape greens.
MARKET SQUARE, DOWNTOWN
TEXAS TAVERN
A remnant of the days when White Castle, Royal Castle, White Tower, and Krystal franchises were spreading across the South promising sanitary conditions, consistent quality burgers, and low, low prices, the Texas Tavern is the last in a small chain of restaurants. (In nearby Lynchburg, there’s a Texas Inn that began life as a Texas Tavern and serves similar food, but it’s a rude place, grimy and greasy, not worthy of its kin.)
The Texas Tavern is a tiny place, a wedge of white brick retro Americana trimmed in red, flanked by high-rise bank buildings. Out front, a red neon arrow arcs downward, blinking “Eat, Eat, Eat.” Inside, the walls are covered in a sort of white laminate tile. Ten stools capped with red vinyl seats face a dimpled, dull metal counter made from Monel, a once popular blend of aluminum and stainless steel. “We don’t cash checks or play with bumblebees” says the tattered sign posted on the back wall. It’s that kind of place.
A temple of greasy goodness, open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
At the suggestion of Matt Bullington, whose grandfather, Nick Bullington, opened the place back in 1930, I order a “Cheesy Western” and a “Chili With.” A good fifteen seconds later grillman Dan Siler, a veteran of more than forty years at the Texas, plops my order down: a cheeseburger topped with a thin egg omelet, cradled in a bun slathered with a healthy portion of piquant, mustardy pickle relish. On the side is a bowl of somewhat soupy chili, with a thin skein of chopped onions floating on top.
I attack my “Cheesy Western,” and Matt fills me in on Texas Tavern history: “My grandfather was an advance man for Ringling Brothers Circus. He traveled the world, even owning his own circus in South America. While he was in San Antonio, Texas, he picked up the chili recipe and the name, figuring that he could sell anything Texas to anybody.”
I say that sounds about right to me and tell him of the stories I’ve heard of the fabled chili queens of San Antonio, said to sell their spicy meat stews on the streets of the old city. Matt, a self-described student of Texas Tavern lore, ponders that for a moment and turns to greet a customer, shouting out his regular order to Dan before the man even gets settled. “Matt’s got a mind like an elephant,” says the new arrival, a blue-suited patrician, his face creased by a fatherly smile.
114 CHURCH AVENUE SW / 540-342-4825
Washington, D.C.
Never mind what John F. Kennedy said about Washington being a city of Northern manners and Southern efficiency. There are good Southern-fried eats—and good stories—to be found among the white marble monotony.
ALL SAINTS CAFETERIA
Rising like a gilded palace above the mean streets of northwestern D.C., the United House of Prayer for All People of the Church on the Rock of the Apostolic Faith has been at the corner of Sixth and M Streets since the 1930s. This is no somber brick Baptist church. Almost two blocks long, the building is a riot of whimsy and grandeur. A gold dome crowns the sanctuary. Above the door to the church offices, a gold-trimmed black angel arcs heavenward. And monstrous concrete lions frame the entrance to the cafeteria and baptismal pool.
Founded in the 1920s by the late C. M. “Daddy” Grace, a flamboyant, charismatic spiritual leader given to wearing purple suits and parading pasha-style among throngs of rose petal–tossing supplicants, the church is one of more than 100 congregations scattered throughout the country that relies on a literal interpretation of Psalm 150: “Praise ye the Lord. Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet. Praise Him with psaltery and harp. Praise Him with timbrel and dance. Praise Him with stringed instruments and organs. Praise ye the Lord.”
Accordingly, services at the church are raucous, extemporaneous, indeed downright soulful. And as you might expect, so is the food served at church cafeterias. Before Daddy Grace was called to the altar, he earned a living as a short-order cook on the Southern Railroad, an experience that may well have inspired him to build a restaurant in each of the denomination’s churches.
At the M Street location, there are actually two cafeterias. One, a little warren of a space facing Sixth Street, has been long presided over by sixty-something-year-old Paul Short, who started wiping tables there when he wasn’t much more than ten. The second, a larger and grander space, known as Saints Paradise Cafeteria, is a subterranean solarium of sorts, a bright banquet room lit by row upon row of skylights. Come lunch time, construction workers and politicos alike jockey for position in line, fearful that, as one man told me, “the church ladies will run smack out of fried pork chops.”
By the time I get to the steam table, there are still plenty of pork chops to be had, not to mention fresh collard greens swimming in potlikker, and eggy macaroni and cheese capped with a sharp and crisp mantle of cheddar. Lurid, lipstick-bright slices of red velvet cake are piled high atop the sneeze guard.
Behind the counter almost all the workers are women, middle-aged for the most part, smiling, church mothers of the old school. In some congregations they are known as kitchen mechanics, ladies who in times of need are called on to cook casseroles and fry chicken to sustain the bereaved or raise funds to repair the church sanctuary.
I ask the lady who hands me a tall tumbler of iced tea why she chose to work at the church cafeteria. “This isn’t a job, honey,” she tells me. “I come in here and cook because I want to, just like my momma did. My work here is like a tithe. And the church gives us a little donation back for our time. But you know, working here, we praise the Lord every day, with every pan of cornbread, every mess of collards.”
601 M STREET NW / 202-789-2289
CHITLIN MARKET (AND Trailer)
Shauna Anderson wants to be your chitlin vendor of choice. “Selling chitlins is all about trust,” she tells me when I visit the suburban Cape Cod home she has transformed into a combination restaurant and commissary for chitlin deliveries. “Chitlins are very personal. A good cook knows that clean chitlins are where it all starts,” she says of the laborious process of scouring pig intestines, a skill she learned from her grandmother.
Anderson opened her chitlin business in 1995. At the time, she was working as an accountant. Her idea was simple. Cleaned chitlins were hard to come by. And tax season only
lasted a few months. She would clean chitlins during her downtime. It was an idea whose time had evidently come, for consumers, wary of the low-rent white buckets of chitlins available at traditional groceries, bought every hog intestine that Anderson and her compatriots could clean.
The following ten years were a blur. One week, producers from the Oprah Winfrey Show would call. Next, it’s poet Nikki Giovanni on the line, placing her regular order, a ten-pound bucket. By 2003 she’s taking the stage at the Smithsonian’s Ana -costia Museum, talking about the history of African American entrepreneurship.
Over time, what began as a seat-of-the-pants operation morphed into a delivery service with a kitchen trailer that wends its way through Washington, D.C., dishing chitlins, stewed in her trademark vinegary sauce, as well as potato salad and cake-like cornbread. Internet orders for ten-pound buckets continue to spiral upward.
More recently Anderson has written a memoir, Offal Great. And she has adapted that memoir for the screen, sketching scenes of the days when Anderson, still in her crib, would watch her mother, a performer of some note, sing at Chitlin Circuit clubs. And then, of course, there’s her Gourmet Chitlin Seasoning Blend which, if Anderson has her way, will soon be available nationwide. The side label of this brownish vinaigrette-like stuff says that it can also be used with “pigs feet, hog maws and other uncured pork products.” And on the front, beneath a whimsical portrait of Anderson, is her slogan, “It takes good eyes to really clean chitlins.”
No, those are not feather boas.
5711 AGER ROAD / HYATTSVILLE, MARYLAND
(WITH CHITLIN WAGON DELIVERIES TO METROPOLITAN D.C.) / 866-436-9381
FLORIDA AVENUE GRILL
The Florida Avenue Grill is the café of choice for homesick Southerners, the early morning haunt of legions of cab drivers, a safe haven in the ever tumultuous D.C. political scene.
In business since 1944, it’s a narrow little joint with faux fieldstone siding and a long twenty-odd-seat counter that snakes its way backward from the front door. The walls are plastered with framed black and white celebrity glossies—the Four Tops, the Fifth Dimension—and politicians—Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, former surgeon general Jocelyn Elders—waxing nostalgic about Florida Avenue’s pork chops and scrapple, fried apples and stewed cabbage. But the really important documents are those displayed by the front door, certificates of service signed with a flourish by manager Lacey Wilson, son of founders Carl and Esther Wilson: Ophelia Jones, twenty-five years; George Taylor, fifteen years; Viola Pointdexter, twenty-five years, among others.
I order pork chops and scrambled eggs with a side of fried apples. When the waitress places my plate before me on the counter, an elderly gentleman seated two stools over leans my way. “Those pork chops are the best you’ll ever taste,” he offers. “And you know why? Because they taste like they did down south before everybody lit out for the cities. Nothing ever changes around here. Not the owners, not the food. Hell, the cook is damn near fossilized, he’s been here so long.” I nod in agreement, turn my attention back to my plate, and set fork to chop.
1100 FLORIDA AVENUE NW / 202-265-1586
BEN’S CHILI BOWL
On April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. That night riots swept the country as black citizens, exhausted and embittered by a long and fitful struggle for equality, unleashed decades of anger. Scores of businesses and homes were wrecked and robbed, looted and burned. Some of the worst damage was done in D.C. along the U Street corridor, known in its halcyon days as the Black Broadway.
One of the few businesses that survived unscathed was Ben’s Chili Bowl, a neighborhood fixture since 1958. “My dad spray-painted ‘Soul Brother’ on the front windows that night, so they would know it was black-owned and not burn the place,” Nizam Ali, son of restaurant founder Ben Ali, recalls. “And even then he spent the night inside with a rifle to make sure.”
In the days following the riots, Ben’s Chili Bowl further cemented its role as a U Street gathering spot, when Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee president Stokely Carmichael—whose office was just across the street—convinced police to allow “the Bowl” to stay open past curfew time.
Today, Ben’s Chili Bowl still matters. And folks still clamor for their tasty half-smoked sausages, cradled in a steamed bun and smothered in a blanket of cumin-spiked chili.
On a recent fall afternoon, the place is hopping. The jukebox booms forth the sounds of Parliament Funkadelic. Row after row of fat, red weenies sizzle on the front grill. A line of hungry eaters bucks for position at the boomerang-shaped counter, hoping to claim a seat at one of the oh-so-1950s stools capped with sparkly red vinyl. And Nazim works the crowd, greeting old friends, refilling tumblers of iced tea, ladling chili on dogs, swabbing down tables. I finish my dog and lick the last bit of grease from my fingers before asking, “So what does the future hold for the Bowl?”
“I went to law school,” Nazim says by way of explanation. “Passed the bar, too. But I asked myself, ‘Why would I want to be just one of a million other lawyers in D.C., when I can work here, keeping my parents’ dream alive, keeping this place’s history alive?’”
Great chili dogs and a slice of the Civil Rights Movement history.
1213 U STREET NW / 202-667-0909
Peanut Soup
an homage to the Hotel Roanoke
Serves 6 to 8
Peanut soup was au courant in the mid-1970s when a farmer from Plains, Georgia, took the oath of office as president of the United States. Truth be told, everything peanut was popular back then, a fine example being the restaurant in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, which, soon after the election, introduced a Jimmy Carter cocktail made with crème de cacao, bourbon, and a teaspoon of creamy peanut butter. Nowadays, peanut soup is harder to come by, but for reasons that remain unclear to me, Virginia seems to be the last redoubt. This recipe, adapted from the Hotel Roanoke, was a bit easier to cadge than the one from the Southern Kitchen in New Market, but it’s in the same spirit. And one more thing: the celery is essential here, adding a bright vegetal note to a rich soup.
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 celery ribs, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
8 cups (2 quarts) homemade chicken stock or low-sodium chicken broth
2¼ cups creamy peanut butter
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon celery salt
½ cup ground peanuts, for serving
Heat the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the celery and onion. Cook until the onion is translucent, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the flour and stir to combine. Stir in chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for flavors to combine, 30 minutes.
Remove from heat and strain into a second saucepan. Whisk in peanut butter, lemon juice, salt, and celery salt until smooth and well combined. Taste and adjust for seasoning with salt. Sprinkle ground peanuts on top before serving.
Thanks Y’all
My debts are many.
In New Orleans, Anne and Matt Konigsmark, Lolis Elie, Sara Roahen, Brooks Hamaker, Pableaux Johnson, and Brett Anderson set me on the right path. Missy Ketchum showed me Jacksonville. Bud Kennedy plotted East Texas. Robb Walsh was my go-to guy in Houston and environs. Rod Davis drove me about Dallas. Jeff Siegel steered me clear of bad pizza. Missy Ming Smith dug around Huntsville. Alecya Galleway shared her history of San León. Rhonda Reeves and Georgeanna Milam made sense of Lexington. Ronni Lundy and Sarah Fritschner and Marty Rosen opened a Pandora’s box of good eats in Louisville. John Fleer introduced me to Tennessee ham man Allan Benton. In Richmond, Julia-Carr Baylor opened up the world of limeade. Matt McMillen offered a tub of cleaned chitlins. Jamie Estes wrangled sandwiches.
Charleston came courtesy of the Lee Brothers. Susan Puckett served up Carver’s in Atlanta. Leslie Kelly revealed ge
ms in Memphis. Thomas Williams and Mary Beth Lasseter scouted Nashville. Carol Puckett, Martha Foose, Luther Brown, and LeAnne Gault dished the Delta. Malcolm White sketched the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Jackson. David Holloway and Ern Laird tempted me with Mobile. Ken Ford, Jim Shirley, and Carl Wernicke dished Pensacola. Ashley Stiff, Mark Hinson, and Diane Roberts laid out Tallahassee. Joyce Wilson and Lynn Nesmith showcased the Panhandle. Jimmy Connor of Gainesville spun the dial in Florida. Staff at the Florida Collection of the Jacksonville Public Library were kind and forthcoming. Charles Tingby at the St. Augustine Historical Society pulled files and spun tales.
Great support was provided by my colleagues Ann Abadie, Charles Reagan Wilson, Sarah Dixon Pegues, and Mary Hartwell Howorth of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. Under the same roof, at the Southern Foodways Alliance, Mary Beth Lasseter, Amy Evans, and Melissa Hall kept me out of the ditches. Over at the Center for Documentary Projects, also at Ole Miss, Andy Harper and Joe York ate their fill and reported their findings.
In addition to receiving recommendations from friends and colleagues, I consulted a plethora of written sources. My favorite books were Don O’Briant’s Backroad Buffets and Country Cafes; Greg Johnson and Vince Staten’s Real Barbecue; Smokestack Lightning by Lolis Eric Elie; Hungry Herman’s Eating Out in Alabama by some guy named Herman; the Cajun Country Guide by Macon Fry and Julie Posner; The Place Setting by Fred Sauceman; North Carolina Barbecue by Bob Garner; Barbecue, Lexington Style by Johnny Stogner; Legends of Texas Barbecue by Robb Walsh; and, of course, Southern Food by John Egerton.