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Food ● ● Old-School: New-School: Barbecue Sandwich Pork Belly Sandwich in on White a Deep-Fried Bun 50 from Scott Family Farm from China Chilcano in and Barbecue

DFrom ithes Tidewatehre to thes Texas coast, from to benne , these great eats prove our region’s dining knows no bounds by John T. Edge

Left: photograph by Peter Frank Edwards; right: photograph by Jason Varney Aug. | Sept. 2015 GardenandGun.com 93 ● New-School: Sweet Potato This spring, over lunch in Charleston, South Carolina, at Minero— Sandwich with Collards the Mexican canteen from Sean Brock, the chef who dismissed non-Southern products from his pantry at Husk—I from Handsome chased a dab of benne salsa with a tortilla chip and unwrapped a Carolina Gold tamal that had the texture of Biscuit . In those Mexican-inspired dishes, made with ingredients that arrived in the colonial Lowcountry via African- Atlantic exchanges, I recognized that, while the South remains a distinctive place with historical patterns of belief, speech, food, and music, old binaries like native versus newcomer and Old South versus New South no longer serve us. ● ● From Baltimore to Austin, cooks now reinvigorate and reinterpret various Southern pasts, re- framing old dishes with august pedigrees. They lavish attention on standards like hoppin’ John and whole-hog barbecue. Through gentle reinventions, they announce the continuing relevance of those cultural and culinary touchstones. Meanwhile, as new immigrants gain their footing and descendants of older immigrants claim this place, a more inclusive and multiethnic South- ern emerges. Cooks of Mexican and Korean and African ancestry are mainstreaming cow head barbacoa, collard kimchi, and thieboudienne. And a new generation of chefs is follow- Old-School ing their lead. Those two visions are not mutually exclusive. Today’s best cooks spelunk our fried chicken past while scouting our pollo frito future. They are respectful of tradition and smitten by innova- tion. Reflective of our new appreciation for the food of this region’s forebears, they cook heritage recipes with unexpected ingredients. Parsed into old-school and new-school categories, the collection that follows showcases my favorites culled from five years on the road, throughout the South and beyond. They’re the sorts of dishes I expect to be regional standbys when this magazine celebrates its twenty-fifth anni- versary. Making these choices wasn’t easy. I left a lot of gravy and a couple of racks of ribs on the cutting room floor. Think of them as edible mileposts on a turnpike to tomorrowland. The very New-School good news is, you don’t have to wait to sample the future I glimpse. You get to taste it right now.

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● honey, and Korean chile paste—a blend that Morning Treats Old-School: registers both sweet and assertive. This biscuit Country Sausage Biscuit tastes bright and fresh and healthy, like a spring from Embers Biscuits curative, like a tonic of greens delivered as a Old-School: Country Sausage Biscuit morning sandwich. handsomebiscuit.com Embers Biscuits & Bar-B-Que; Oxford, MS Fast-food restaurants nearly killed the biscuit. Pastries For decades, they have churned out greasy fists Old-School: Caramelized Pecan of dough, stuffed with feeble rounds of patty Sticky Bun sausage. But Embers, a one-window drive- WildFlour; Charleston, SC through that opened in 2013, does biscuits Most rolls are gooey messes. At this right. The secret is Earline Hall, a twenty-three- cubbyhole bakery on a Charleston side street, year veteran of the biscuit board, who pats and Lauren Mitterer streamlines the form, baking rolls and cuts dough rounds that bake off to prim little knobs of cinnamon-threaded and cotton-boll crumbs. 662-238-3565 pecan-studded pastry, and topping them with ● ● fat disks of icing that suggest the ivory sun- New-School: Hot Betty bonnets worn by promenading Victorian-era Handsome Biscuit; Norfolk, VA gentry. wildflourpastrycharleston.com The envelope is a sweet-potato biscuit that’s not ● ● too sweet. Spilling out over a fried egg is a tangle New-School: Satsuma Kolaches of shiny collard greens, flecked with slices, Revival Market; Houston, TX doused with a that tastes of vinegar, You know Tex-Mex. Meet the next Southwest-

94 GardenandGun.com Aug. | Sept. 2015 illustrations by JAMES GILLEARD; left: photograph by rush jagoe; right: photograph by lissa gotwals ern cuisine, Czech-Mex. Morgan Weber grew up ● ● like red rice and . But because African Okra pasteboard box along with a cup of creamed homeland of the Garcias, who run this Little in south-central Texas eating divoted pastries New-School: Eggplants in Spicy expertise has long been felt but not heard here- Old-School: Fried Okra potato salad and a sandwich of chicken salad Havana walk-up, which opened in 1973. At La called kolaches, baked by his Czech grand- Garlic Sauce abouts, I rarely taste dishes that broadcast The Senator’s Place; Cleveland, MS on white, the deviled eggs stuffed by the wom- Camaronera, I like them best dribbled with mother. Prune and were her fillings. Bistro; Houston, TX those antecedents. Chef JJ Johnson’s mess of Fried okra is best enjoyed as finger food, eat- en of Sally Bell’s Kitchen, in business since hot sauce. garciabrothersseafood.com Now, on Saturday mornings during satsuma A single red pepper, inscribed alongside the al dente collards, stirred with peanut butter en by the greedy handful like popcorn from a 1924, are demure. Prim even. No trout roe ● ● season, Ryan Pera, his colleague in this swish menu listing, warns of the heat to come. Cori and perfumed with cinnamon and anise, is movie theater bucket. Making it is difficult to garnish. No yard egg provenance. Just vel- New-School: Garbanzo Hush Puppies butcher shop and café, bakes kolaches bulging Xiong, born in Sichuan, and her husband, one of those dishes. mintonsharlem.com master. The crust must be so crisp that it shat- vet yolks and tight whites, an indulgent com- Dove’s Luncheonette; Chicago, IL with windfall fruit. revivalmarket.com Heng Chen, born in Liaoning, are expert ma- ● ● ters. The okra beneath should taste bright and bo that disappears in two bites. sallybells Served on a bed of shrimp cream cheese, nipulators of the yin and yang of Sichuan New-School: Killed Greens vegetal. The cooks in the employ of Senator kitchen.com capped with a hash of pickled cabbage, and ma (tingly Sichuan peppercorns) and la (fi- with Bacon Vinaigrette Willie Simmons get everything right. And they ● ● stippled with guajillo chile vinaigrette, these From the Garden ery chile peppers). While some dishes here Blackberry Farm; Walland, TN kindly look the other way when I eat it with my New-School: Deviled Shrimp and Grits Chihuahua-cheese-stuffed fritters call to mind Eggplant steal your breath, these velvety purple ingots, Talk to food obsessives about Blackberry hands. 662-846-7434 The Cloister; Sea Island, GA hush puppies as reinvented by a Mexican short- Old-School: Fried Eggplant served in a caramel-tinted sauce, prove as Farm, the gastro-fetishist resort in the Smoky ● ● In this shotgun marriage of deviled eggs and order cook. This diner from chef Paul Kahan Galatoire’s Restaurant; New Orleans, LA sweet as they are incendiary. 713-995-1889 Mountain foothills, and they rave about the New-School: Bhindi Amchoor shrimp and grits, David Carrier, the chef at the samples southern Texas and northern Mexico, They look like a cross between dinner menus, which feature such dishes as Rasika; Washington, D.C. luxe Cloister on Sea Island, folds hard-boiled setting the cultural dance to a backbeat of and Lincoln Logs. Hot from the fryer, they are Greens squab breast with onion soubise. But I believe Not quite stewed, not quite roasted, these yolks into stone-ground grits, stuffs that rich turntable-spun classic soul.doveschicago.com creamy at their cores. Eaten naked, or maybe Old-School: Peanut Butter the best meal here is breakfast, when Josh dusky green pods from chef Vikram Sunderam mix into a couple of boiled egg halves, and then with a spritz of lemon, they satisfy. But dipped Collard Greens Feathers sometimes doles out orange corn- arrive fragrant with cumin, onion, , and drenches the whole affair in a deviled shrimp in a sauce of powdered sugar and Tabasco, as Minton’s; New York, NY meal griddlecakes with pecan butter and, the dried mango powder. Served in a two-handled gravy of ground crustaceans and house-cured Sandwiches & generations of diners have done it, these slight- Southern food is West African food. That link- most platonic of dishes, bacon-vinaigrette- copper pot, in a turmeric-walled lounge with tasso. This is restaurant cookery at its playful Bologna Sandwiches ly bitter twigs straddle the realms of vegetable age is evident in African-born ingredients such wilted field greens into which he swaddles a a modern, hotel-lobby vibe, they bespeak the best. seaisland.com Old-School: Smoked Bologna and miracle.galatoires.com as okra and watermelon. It’s suggested by dishes couple of poached eggs. blackberryfarm.com flavors that connect the subcontinent and this on continent. rasikarestaurant.com Dips Helen’s Bar-B-Q; Brownsville, TN Old-School: Comeback Sauce You’ve heard of whole-hog cookery. This is Mayflower Cafe; Jackson, MS whole-bologna cookery, in which pit master Small Bites Popularized in the 1930s by Greek restaurants Helen Turner smokes logs of pink meat on her Boudin like the Rotisserie in Jackson—made with oak- and hickory-fired back-porch pit. Order a Old-School: Pork Boudin mayo, chili sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and sandwich and she cuts off an impossibly thick Mowata Store; Mowata, LA a pantry’s worth of other embellishments— slice, which you can get crowned with slaw and Bubba Frey stuffs guts for a living. The stuff- comeback is the preferred Mississippi dress- sluiced with a hot sauce that burns like a wasp ing is something like dirty rice, absent the dirt, ing for salads and the favorite dip for fries. More stings. 731-779-3255 which is to say the liver. At this country store, recently, I’ve learned to trowel comeback on ● ● the cool kids pull out their pocketknives, slice a cracker and eat the combo as a canapé. New-School: Baloney Bao steamed boudin links into coins, and top them mayflowercafems.com Underbelly; Houston, TX with fig preserves, which Frey makes with ● ● A taste of childhood, filtered through the backyard fruit. Eaten on saltines, these jerry- New-School: Benne Salsa feverish imagination of Chris Shepherd—an rigged snacks are savory and sweet, elegant and Minero; Charleston, SC advocate of all things Houston who has built primal. 337-457-1140 With a deep flavor that recalls fire-scorched his career on paying tribute to the multi- ● ● peanuts, this salsa is auburn hued and gritty ethnic beauty of his strip-mall-engirded city. New-School: Frogmore Boudin textured. Think of a supple peanut butter with This sandwich is built on a steamed lotus bun, Ad Hoc; Yountville, CA a tannic finish. Sean Brock conceived the dish swabbed with Japanese Kewpie mayo (made You know that marine smell that lingers in the for his Mexican-inspired restaurant, but we with rice vinegar), layered with house-cured air after a Saturday afternoon shrimp boil? owe its existence to the agricultural spadework bologna, dressed with shaved iceberg, and Katie Hagan-Whelchel, a Kentucky native who of heritage grains revivalist Glenn Roberts of garnished with a sense of humor. underbelly directs the kitchen in this casual Thomas Keller Anson Mills, who reintroduced benne and oth- houston.com outpost, captures the sweet and funky olfacto- er traditional ingredients in the Lowcountry ry punch of a summer feast in these reimagined larder to Charleston chefs and their acolytes. Chicken Stews sausages, filled with corn, Gulf shrimp, catfish, minerorestaurant.com Old-School: Chicken crab, and Carolina Gold rice. Served with pota- Claunch Café; Tuscumbia, AL to flour crackers and sharp beer mustard, they Fritters On the south side of Virginia, cooks have ● beg for a lawn-mower brew and a squeeze of Old-School: Bollitos de Carita stirred pots of Brunswick stew for nearly two New-School: lemon. thomaskeller.com/ad-hoc La Camaronera; Miami, FL centuries. In south-central Alabama, the com- Okra with Cumin, Called acarajé in Brazil and akara in Nigeria, munity feed is the camp stew, a vegetable- Onion, and Ginger Deviled eggs black-eyed pea fritters are omnipresent thick variant. In northern Alabama, chicken from Rasika Old-School: Deviled Egg Half street food in lands where African cooks com- stew, a mull of rich stock, ropy chicken, and Sally Bell’s Kitchen; Richmond, VA mand the kitchens. Fried hard in deep oil, a crop row of vegetables is what Boy Scout Wrapped in wax paper and tucked inside a they’re known as bollitos de carita in Cuba, troops and VFW chapters cook to raise money

photograph by jason varney Aug. | Sept. 2015 GardenandGun.com 97 for causes. Tucked in a city park, in the shade of the same family who founded the place still feeds of whole hog barbecue, pulled into ruddy of a water tower, Claunch Café serves a soul- astound. Born of stevedore hunger and Sicilian bits and doused in a vinegar-pepper sauce. ful restaurant version accompanied by crisp ingenuity, this sandwich is a city calling card, 843-372-1593 corn that are ready for sopping. as classic as a shrimp and crab gumbo. central ● ● 256-386-0222 groceryneworleans.com New-School: Sánguche de ● ● ● ● Chancho Nipón New-School: Samp Grits with New-School: Seafood China Chilcano; Washington, D.C. Potlikker and Chicken Skins Parran’s Po-Boys; Metairie, LA Peruvian cookery, in the hands of José Andrés, The Restaurant at Meadowood; Call this an aberration if you like. No olive salad references peoples of West African, Spanish, St. Helena, CA spills from the seeded crown. In place of Italian Chinese, and Japanese descent. If that mix Christopher Kostow, the chef at this three- meat and cheese, the Parran family piles on sounds dizzying, take a gander at the interi- Michelin-starred restaurant in the Napa Valley, fried catfish, shrimp, and oysters. Dig into the or of this restaurant, which recalls a Carmen is keen on samp grits, which translates as coars- history of the muff, though, and you realize that Miranda headdress, interpreted by Keith er than normal cracked corn. Milled by Geechee the sandwich got its name not from the meat Haring. These deep-fried buns, paved with Boy, in South Carolina, they serve as ballast and cheese fillings, but from a round loaf of sim- slices of custardy sweet potato, layered with in this chicken stew, rich with potlikker and ilar name, popular in Sicily. That makes this hunks of pork belly and coins of pickled daikon, floating with rendered chicken skins. Between sandwich legit. parranspoboys.com are just as eye-catching and palate pleasing. bites, two people in my earshot described the chinachilcano.com dish as reminiscent of their grandmother’s Pocket Foods food. When I told the chef, he agreed that was Old-School: Roll high praise for haute cuisine. therestaurant Tomaro’s Bakery; Clarksburg, WV Meats atmeadowood.com Founded by Anthony Tomaro in 1914, in the Fried Chicken Italian-dominated Glen Elk district of Clarks- Old-School: Keel of Fried Chicken Egg Sandwiches burg, Tomaro’s bakes yeasted rolls, stuffed Indi’s; Louisville, KY Old-School: Combination Sandwich with sticks of grocery-store pepperoni. Sold Drenched in hot sauce, the birds served at Sing Wong Restaurant; Portsmouth, VA throughout the upper reaches of Appalachia, this fried chicken mini chain, which does At this takeaway counter, popular with dock- in taverns and country stores, to miners and business on both sides of the Ohio River, are Global table The dining room at China Chilcano. workers, Patsy Wong wok-fries round little om- other shift workers, this is gut bomb baking passkeys to a vestigial South, wherein was elets threaded with onions and pork, which raised to a high art. tomarosbakery.com the preferred flavoring for anything fried, and the bench out front, that sort of ham is the she shingles on cushiony slices of white bread ● ● frugal butchers knew how to prize the keel bedrock on which Virginia was built. dardens and smears with mayonnaise. Introduced by New-School: Fried Chicken Burrito bone from the breast, so that anatomically countrystore.com Chinese immigrants to the region in the early Wilma Jean; Brooklyn, NY aware eaters could gnaw their way to pleasure. ● ● twentieth century, it’s the egg sandwich of my Packed with fried chicken, hoppin’ John, 502-363-2535 New-School: Jambon Américain dreams, with a history that spans three genera- and a chiffonade of raw collards that wilt on ● ● Dirty French; New York, NY tions of Tidewater folk. 757-399-1467 contact with hacked pieces of hot crust and New-School: The Kitty Dirty French samples colonial cookery of the ● ● meat, these stubby burritos, conceived by chef Two Boots; Nashville, TN late French empire. Morocco shows. So does New-School: Perico Arepa Rob Newton, taste like the leftovers from an Hot chicken is the Nashville meme of the de- Vietnam. Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone Arepa Mia; Decatur, GA Arkansas farmer’s Sunday dinner, wrapped in cade. Prince’s and Bolton’s ushered in the era. interpret the American South as ribbons of Picture a double-thick hoecake, slit along the ● a flour tortilla by a Mexican bodega owner. Try Riffs are now legion. Chauhan Ale & Masala Surryano ham—a coinage riff on Spanish side and stuffed with soft-scrambled eggs, Old-School: them sprinkled with the house serrano pepper House serves hot chicken pakoras. Sinema Serrano, cured in the Native American style and you get a good idea of what this Venezue- Chicken Stew vinegar. wilmajean345.com dishes hot shrimp cocktail. Two Boots, a small by Sam Edwards of Virginia—served with a lan breakfast sandwich looks like. To get a from Claunch Café New York chain that went native when it alight- crock of remoulade garnished with an olive handle on the taste, conjure a low-crowned Pork ed, tops a pie called the Kitty with blue cheese relish that tastes like it was airmailed from biscuit made with masa and girded with Sandwiches dressing, finely diced jalapeños, and chunks New Orleans. dirtyfrench.com scrambled yard eggs. Caracas native Lis Her- Old-School: Barbecue of crust-enrobed hot chicken from Hattie B’s. nandez crafts eats that taste like they were Sandwich on White Bread It’s the ultimate drunk stymie. twoboots.com Pork Chops lifted from a Venezuelan Waffle House R&D Scott Family Farm and Barbecue; Old-School: Smothered Pork Chop manual. arepamiaatlanta.com Hell’s Half Acre, SC Ham Silver Sands Cafe; Nashville, TN Ricky Scott carries on the tradition of family Old-School: Ham Sandwich Sophia Vaughn and her crew at this soul-food farmers who bolstered their income by cook- Darden’s Country Store; Smithfield, VA bunker fry thin-cut pork chops in deep oil and Old-School: Original Muffuletta ing pigs on the side and selling sandwiches Aproned by a dirt lot, fronted by weathered sid- smother them in a deeper vat of gravy, tangled Central Grocery Co.; New Orleans, LA and plates to their neighbors. When he’s not ing, entered through a screen door, the Darden with sweet onions and buckshot with black The clerks are brusque. And the line is intermi- working for the nearby town of Kingstree, or family store looks like a stage set for a country pepper. On the steam table, that crisp chop nable in this garlic-and-cheese-scented Italian volunteering as a fireman, Scott chops his noir film. In a barn across the street, Tommy and gravy mingle, as fragments of crust break grocery, opened in the early 1900s. But the own wood and shovels hardwood coals into a Darden cures and rafter-hangs salt-freckled free from the bone, rendering a liquid that will sandwiches of mortadella, salami, ham, pro- cinder-block pit, drawing pilgrims to the com- haunches that come sliced and stacked on coat both the back of a spoon and the pit of a volone, and olive salad stacked by descendants munity of Hell’s Half Acre for Thursday-only slim white bread with mayonnaise. Eaten on stomach. silversandscafe.com

98 GardenandGun.com Aug. | Sept. 2015 Left: photograph by robert rausch; right: photograph by jason varney Aug. | Sept. 2015 GardenandGun.com 99 ● Old-School: Fried Whole Catfish from Pap’s Place

swine language Left to right: The grilled pork chop at Doan’s Restaurant; Sol Epps and Ricky Scott, of Scott Family Farm and Barbecue.

● ● Hawk’s works hard to deliver great crawfish. Not at Pap’s, a double-wide storefront on New-School: Grilled Pork Chop You will work just as hard to find this back- Main Street that replenishes its supply of Doan’s Restaurant; Charlotte, NC of-beyond roadhouse, traveling plumb-line whole fiddlers every fifteen minutes. Pap’s Scan the menu. Look for the category that roads that border serpentine Cajun country television commercials, accessible on You- reads co’m taˆ´m and translates as “broken rice.” rice fields.hawkscrawfish.com Tube, are pop culture treasures, in which In the Lowcountry, broken rice, also known as ● ● proprietor Cherry Salley, joined by a danc- middlins, is key in pilaus. At this Vietnamese New-School: Vietnamese ing catfish in a plush costume, channels her strip-mall restaurant, run by the Doan family, Crawfish best Minnie Pearl and shouts, “Jesus Christ is a mound of middlins is the foil for nickel-thin Crawfish & Noodles; Houston, TX Lord!” 662-285-6352 pork chops. Lacquered with nuoc mam, these Served in plastic guppy bags, boiled and ● ● blades of pork and bone look like flattened drenched in butter and garlic, stripped of New-School: Eugene’s Breakfast in chrysanthemums and taste like pig lollipops. their bright red carapaces, dabbed in saucers Mobile, circa 1930 704-733-9077 of finely ground pepper and salt, and damp- Big Jones; Chicago, IL ened with lime juice, Vietnamese crawfish When poet, novelist, and bon vivant Eugene are now Gulf Coast mainstays. The drench is Walter was a boy, Mobile was a thriving port From the Waters key, says proprietor Trong Nguyen, who told city, teeming with plantain-loaded freighters Crawfish me, “Butter makes crawfish gleam.” crawfish from Central America and rice boats bound Old-School: Boiled Crawfish andnoodle.com for transatlantic passage. Paul Fehribach, a Hawk’s; Rayne, LA student of Walter’s culinary legacy, pays hom- Founded by the Arceneaux family, Hawk’s Fried Catfish age to that era with rice-flour-battered catfish harvests extra-large crawfish from local Old-School: Buffet Whole Catfish and cornmeal-crusted plantains, served atop waters and runs them through a well-water Pap’s Place; Ackerman, MS a smoky rendition of black beans and rice, gar- aeration purge. A quick boil and a spice soak Buffet lines are where crisp fried catfish goes nished with a bright yellow relish of pickled follow. Open only during the spring season, to get soggy, where hush puppies go to hush. kumquats. bigjoneschicago.com

100 GardenandGun.com Aug. | Sept. 2015 Left: photograph by margaret houston; center: photograph by Peter Frank Edwards; right: photograph by rush jagoe Fried Oysters Old-School: Oysters Saltbox Seafood Joint; Durham, NC ● Ricky Moore, a graduate of the Culinary New-School: Institute of America and a white-tablecloth Spiced Carrot Cake restaurant veteran, has staked out a coastal from Spice to Table fish camp on the fringe of downtown Durham. He succeeds, sourcing his oysters from Swan Quarter, , frying the little jew- els in impeccably clean grease, and them with salt, lemon zest, and not much more. This is minimalist cooking perfected, a meld- ing of art and craft worthy of Bauhaus. saltbox seafoodjoint.com ● ● New-School: Crispy Oysters with Green Garlic Yogurt Kindred; Davidson, NC Battered sparingly and fried gently, Joe Cobblers liquid gold Bread pudding at Commander’s Palace. Kindred’s riff on oysters with tartar sauce Old-School: Peach Cobbler emerges from the oil looking beige and crag- The Bear’s Den; Macon, GA ● ● gy and rumpled. Beneath the pleasingly raspy I’m a syrup and crust man. Peach wedges, float- New-School: Commander’s Bread exterior, these just-shucked beauties quiver. ing like ectoplasm in lava lamp suspension, Pudding Soufflé Served on a gold-rimmed plate, on a skid of gar- are of lesser import. If you share my prejudice Commander’s Palace; New Orleans, LA licky white sauce that recalls a Greek tzatziki, and palate, you’ll love this molar-rattling cob- Conceived in the early 1980s, when Paul they arrive with a tuck of watercress that com- bler, crowned by a crisp trilby of sugar-strewn Prudhomme manned the kitchens, built on plements the whole like a feather does a cap. pastry. By the way, the bear in question is the a base of custard-soaked bread, this elegant kindreddavidson.com mascot of nearby Mercer University. thebears dessert still looks and tastes modern. Waiters denmacon.com finish it tableside by puncturing the brûléed ● ● top with a spoon and pouring in whiskey sauce Sweets New-School: Cornmeal Sonker until it overflows in a voluptuous magma of Cakes The Whale Wins; Seattle, WA bourbon and butter. commanderspalace.com Old-School: Floating Angel Food Cake Sonkers are deep-dish pie-like desserts that Alzina’s; Galliano, LA are juicier than cobblers. Cornmeal sonkers, Pies The setting, a buoy toss from the Gulf of Mexico subspecies of the form, come capped with a Old-School: Pecan and in a onetime welding shop that looks as if it were poof of instead of a slick of biscuit Sweet Potato Pie abandoned when Nixon was still thought trust- pastry. Until recently, sonkers have rarely trav- Rhoda’s Famous Hot Tamales and Pies; worthy, is as rudimentary as this fairy wing of a eled beyond Surry County, North Carolina. Lake Village, AR dessert is elegant. Presented tableside, Alzina But news now spreads fast and far. In Seattle, I keep a picture of this pie on my cell phone. Toups’s egg-white-lifted sponge cake bobs and Renee Erickson serves cornmeal-topped peach When I show it to people, they gasp with de- tilts on a sea of coconut custard. Plan ahead: sonkers, embellished with honey whipped light. After they settle down, I regale them with Reservations at this working-class temple of cream. No one would recognize them back in stories of Rhoda Adams, a baker of the highest Cajun home cooking must be secured four or Surry County. But you’ll relish every morsel. order, famous for turning out bifurcated pe- five months in advance.985-632-7200 thewhalewins.com can and sweet potato pies tucked in diminutive ● ● tins like fraternal twins. 870-265-3108 New-School: Spiced Carrot Cake Leftover Bread ● ● Spice to Table; Atlanta, GA Old-School: Buttered Rolls New-School: Roasted Peanut Chess Pie The ivory buttercream is pocked with black The Dining Room; Memphis, TN Scratch; Durham, NC peppercorns. The moist crumb is bolstered Down through the generations, bakers have I’ve sampled grapefruit chess pies, chocolate- with cardamom and . This layered car- turned leftover biscuit dough into dump- chile chess pies, and sweet-tea chess pies. All rot cake, based on a recipe borrowed from lings and sweets. At this soul-food café, Doris are logical brand extensions, aimed to balance the mother of chef Asha Gomez, is analogous McGhee channels the northern Mississippi the bucket of sugar called for in most recipes. to every other carrot cake you have eaten in and southwestern Tennessee tributaries of But Phoebe Lawless wins the prize for chess the same way that a B. B. King three-chord that broader tradition, baking cinnamon-and- pie elaboration by tamping down the treacle progression is comparable to the fret work nutmeg-strafed coils of dough, poached in with earthy dark roasted peanuts, rendering of a guitar player in a cruise ship cover band. milk, until they resemble golden brown puff- a pie that tastes haute and bass and altogether

BMK Photography spicetotable.com balls. 901-744-0999 courant. piefantasy.com G

Left: photograph by whitney ott Aug. | Sept. 2015 GardenandGun.com 103