recently i had a chance to go on a road trip to oxford, mississippi -- the mythical land inspiring william faulkner's yoknapatawpha county, where in 1962 the african-american veteran james meredith had to fight for admission to ole miss university to become its first black student, and overly caring waitresses call you honey when serving fried catfish with hush puppies.
fried fish, fried eggplant, fried cornbread, fried sweet potato, fried chicken, fried...it seemed that pretty much everything Is fried in mississippi. this -- not unexpected -- greasy southern cuisine was accompanied by honeys, sweet peas, and sugar. not in our dishes but along with them as these are the preferred titles waitresses give you when swarming around your table asking uncannily often if you think everything is alright.
ready to eat? -- an incredibly tender if somewhat tasteless breaded and deep-fried catfish filet with baby hush puppies, baked beans, and cole slaw as sides. i was told by an expert hush puppies eater that they are usually bigger: they are balls of cornbread that is deep fried and eaten with maple syrup.
we found this simple, unhealthy but delicious meal in the tiny town of taylor, about 15 car minutes south of oxford. lonely planet led us there. we had hoped for an out of the way forgotten place. out of the way it was, as usually no signs and lots of driving through the middle of nowhere until to hit it, forgotten it wasn't. whole bus loads full of people arrived and lined up for a seat in the diner style run-down decoratively but charmingly old building.
it's called taylor grocerys and offers a rather simple menu.
along with music from a corner stage.
apparently it is not enough to eat fried catfish and fried chicken...
people also love to sing about it.
to test the even more commercial end of southern food, we found ourselves a huddle house, a popular fast food chain in the region, which serves: "hearty helpings" with biscuits and sausages "smothered in gravy." and smothered in honey and darlings, an address common in mississippi. as sweet as the waitresses where, their presence was a bit eery for my taste, especially when during to unrelated incidents they spied on how much tip we would give. in the huddle house, the waitress asked out right: so honey, how much tip to you wanna give me?
one of the most interesting and diverse menus we found in the ajax diner at the oxford town square: sweet potato fries, catfish with turnips (the dark green leafy content in the small bowl in the lower left-hand corner), and fried egg plant (on my plant). the turnips taste a bit stronger than spinach but are tasty, the eggplant had to struggle against its the strong flavor of its fried breading. unfortunately we missed out on the sweet potato fries. by the way, i made the mistake to naively order tea once -- to battle a cold -- and my comeuppance came to in the form of (overly) sweetened black ice tea.
the other interesting dish we tried was jambalaya and i hear there are many versions of it. they always seem to involve a mixture of rice or noodles with fish and vegetables. it reminded me a bit of the spanish concept of paella. our jambalaya came from another oxford eaterie close to the town square. it was served with pasta, tiny crawfish pieces, baby shrimp, and bell peppers with a piece of corn bread that appeared to be self-baked. this was the only time we ate that the fish was not breaded and deep fried.
everyone is tempted by a goooood fish fry. but after about three rounds of catfish, crawfish, and shrimp, we decided to try an oddity on the way up north that we saw in a report in a regional newscast.
right at the border between mississippi and kentucky by nashville, some northerners are trying to overcome the fried catfish obsession off their geographical peers by offering chicago-style deep-dish pizza. the eatery is easy to oversee along a long highway and away from the usual business district its "eat here" poles. the waitress told us they've been open for about a year.
so we took the chicago-style deep dish as that seemed to be the best price per portion. little did i know...
about the monster crossbreed of a cheese cake and a normal sized pizza that arrived and took up 80% of our table. the monster was filled with cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, mushroom, cheese, sausage, cheese. red onion, cheese, bell pepper, cheese, peperoni topped by triple cheese.
it fed us for the next couple of days while camping out in mammoth cave national park, our last stop before heading up north again (into healthy eating territory).
to mississippi and back, part 1: a pretty piece of land -- where lincoln was born
to mississippi and back, part 2: the romantic south -- oxford & ole miss
to mississippi and back, part 3: unavoidably ubiquitous -- the world of william faulkner
to mississippi and back, part 4: honey, sweetie & fried fish -- our southern food history
to mississippi and back, part 5: mammoth cave: "the world's largest network of natural caves"
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