Algonquin just released a book of mine, Southern Belly: the Ultimate Food Lover's Companion to the South. Within are profiles of 200-odd people and places. Food people and places. It's kind of a guidebook, in that I include profiles of old-school restaurants. It's kind of a social history book, in that I use food as a way to think about race and class and other issues. I'm proud of the book. But I'll admit, freely, that—taking into account the restrictions of the form—it's flawed. By the time we went to print, one of my favorite spots in the book, Mayo's Mahalia Jackson Fried Chicken (and Fried Pies), in Nashville, closed. Maybe not for good. But as of this writing you can no longer buy the best sweet potato pocket pie in the world from E.W. Mayo, the nonagenarian king of the fry basket. Losses of that sort are buoyed by new discoveries like the Cotton Boll Grill in Shreveport. It's a hutch of a place, in business since the 1930s, with a counter at center and four rows of flanking booths. Sausage and gravy over homemade biscuits for breakfast. Chicken fried in vegetable oil and ham drippings for lunch. (Great stuff!) The Cotton Boll is owned by David Bridges, who also owns Bella Fresca, a local white tablecloth restaurant. But never mind that. The people to pay attention to at the Cotton Boll are the African American cooks and servers who really own the place. They are talented. They are sweet. They are sassy. On the day I was in, lead fry cook Evelean Demming was wearing a Cotton Boll T-shirt. On the rear was the retro-hip Cotton Boll logo. One the front was a stylized rendering of three chicken drumsticks and the slogan, "NICE LEGS."
By
John T. Edge
Meet Evelean and Ogle Her Nice Legs
07.30.07
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- john t. edge,
- southern u.s.,
- restaurants,
- travel
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