Posted by Ed Levine, March 22, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Editor's note: Occasionally what looks at first glance to be a conventional guidebook transcends the genre in surprising ways. John T. Edge's Southern Belly is just such a read, which is why I'm pleased that he has allowed us to excerpt selected items from it on Serious Eats, where they appear every other week. —Ed Levine
By John T. Edge | Jane Barton, whom everyone seems to call the Mayonnaise Queen, has been on her feet since 4:30 this morning. Her gray hair is fashionably coiffed. She wears a paisley smock over Bermuda shorts. Her reading glasses dangle from a gold herringbone necklace. This is her 49th year of service at the Waffle Shop, a Lenten-only canteen set in the basement of Calvary Episcopal Church in downtown Memphis, Tennessee. "I've been making mayonnaise for 45 of those years," she says. "I took over when the lady who was supposed to make it broke her leg."
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Posted by Ed Levine, August 13, 2007 at 8:40 AM
On the way back from Greenwood, Mississippi, we stayed in Memphis. We arrived in downtown Memphis at 10 p.m. to find ourselves in a sea of Elvis impersonators. They were having a huge Elvis impersonator concert and contest. I'm not kidding. There were two Elvis impersonators checking in ahead of us at the Peabody Hotel. We were not there to see faux kings, we were there to eat barbecue.
In the name of research, because Bon Appétit had named Charlie Vergos' Rendezvous one of its three finalists in its search for the best baby back ribs in the country, and also because it was a two-minute walk from our hotel and it was too late to eat at someplace like Cozy Corner (the best all-around barbecue joint in Memphis), we had a couple of racks of Rendezvous Room ribs. Now I have eaten these ribs many times, and maybe at one point they were really good.
But last Saturday night the Rendezvous Room ribs were not even worthy of a top three designation in downtown Memphis, much less the nation.
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Posted by Ed Levine, August 9, 2007 at 9:13 AM
When you love fried chicken as much as I do you get really bugged when Bon Appétit announces its three finalists in its search for the best fried chicken in the U.S. and Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken is not on the list.
Not that the other three contenders, Blackberry Farm (Walland, Tennessee), Price's Chicken Coop (Charlotte, North Carolina), and Willa Mae's Scotch House (New Orleans) are not worthy of serious consideration.
I have written lovingly of Willa Mae Seaton's wondrous fried chicken in GQ and Business Week. (Those stories don't appear to be online or else I'd link to them.) My friend John T. Edge, whom I trust implicitly in these matters (he did write the book on fried chicken), speaks very highly of the other two chickens, though I'm sure he would agree that including an extremely fancy-pants place like Blackberry Farm on a list of fried chicken joints is a questionable decision. But pondering a cosmically important question like who makes and sells the best fried chicken in America and not including Gus's is like arguing about who the best heavyweight champion of all time is and not including Muhammed Ali in the discussions.
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Posted by Alaina Browne, March 1, 2007 at 4:00 AM
Serious Eats is proud to bring you, through special arrangement, six tasty excerpts from Smokestack Lightning, a Day in the Life of Barbecue. Filmmakers and serious eaters Scott Stohler and David Bransten of Bay Package Productions follow ten subjects from five different states, exploring "the history and tradition of this food from its rural beginnings to its present day incarnation in large-scale commercial organizations."
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Posted by Adam Kuban, January 4, 2007 at 7:17 AM
From back the alleys off Beale Street in Memphis to the cattle yards of Kansas City, Smokestack Lightning takes a look at urban 'cue.
Posted by Adam Kuban, December 28, 2006 at 2:23 AM
Posted by Adam Kuban, December 27, 2006 at 6:02 AM
Burger documentarian George Motz visits Dyer's Burgers in Memphis to investigate the joint's unique deep-fried hamburgers.
"Back then, they didn't have the flat tops and all this, so they cook in a cast-iron skillet," Dyer's owner Tom Robertson says. "As you cook more burgers, the grease grows, and eventually it becomes a deep-fried hamburger. We strain and process our grease daily, but we've never thrown it out and started over, so somewhere in there's molecules from 1912. That's what makes it so good."
Further Reading
Dyer's Burgers [Roadfood.com]
Hamburger America [Director George Motz's website]
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Posted by Adam Kuban, December 14, 2006 at 12:00 PM
Memphis pit masters Raymond Robinson (Cozy Corner Barbecue) and J. C. Hardaway (Big S Lounge) serve up their origin stories and talk meat—from Boston butt to ribs to Cornish hens.
