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Pursuits

Tamales, Catfish and Meringue Pie: Delicacies of the Mississippi Delta


Collard greens, cornbread, yams and pork at Senator’s Place in Cleveland, Miss. The restaurant pays homage to Senator Simmons’ mother who fed 11 children on the recipes Senator Simmons’ kitchen staff now use.
Credit...Robert Rausch for The New York Times

As I stared into my Styrofoam container of fried chicken gizzards, I considered my mission. I had set out to explore the culinary delights of the Mississippi Delta, hoping to discover foods with rich histories unfamiliar to those who had never visited. These gizzards were a start, but I had my eye out for tamales, neck bones, pies topped with ankle-deep meringue. I wanted to explore the established restaurants and the odd hole-in-the-wall joints.

But I hadn’t quite made it to Mississippi yet; I’d stopped 20 miles short, across the Mississippi River in Marvell, Ark. Eating at the Double Quick gas station — a small chain based in Indianola, Miss., scattered throughout the Delta, and known for its soul food offerings of fried chicken and fish and stomach-engorging sides — didn’t feel like cheating, though, as the gastronomic borders in the deltas of Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi tend to blur. In these epicurean time capsules, created by insurmountable and harrowing poverty, locals prepare and enjoy dishes that stretch ingredients sourced from the land’s nutrient-rich earth and blended from a stew of cultural influences.

My reverie was interrupted by an elderly woman at the booth across from me, asking if I was one of the Teach for America teachers in town. I looked up and explained that I lived in New Orleans.

“New Orleans,” she said with all the energy the offensively steamy Delta day would provide. “Never been that far from here, but I got to get some of that great food and gumbo before I die.”

Caught a little off-guard by the declaration of mortality, I laughed. She shrugged and turned away, staring out the window and humming softly to herself.

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Abe’s Bar-B-Q, famous for its barbecue and hot tamales, has been called an institution.Credit...Robert Rausch for The New York Times

I popped a few final gizzards into my mouth, chewed through their strange gumminess and heat-tinged saltiness, and got up to leave. As I drove across the river, I reflected further on a region that had been unchanged by time.

Time — and the economic pressures of the era we live in. A shrinking job market has led to a shrinking population and rampant poverty. A renewed effort by the Mississippi Tourism Association has helped create a greater flow of tourists to the region by creating the Mississippi Blues Trail and the Mississippi Freedom Trail. But there are a growing number of individuals visiting the Delta specifically for its food.

“For some reason the food in the Delta is just different,” said Sylvester Hoover, a blues and civil rights guide and owner of Hoover’s Grocery, which I visited in Greenwood, Miss. “It’s got a different taste to it. Turnip greens here don’t taste like turnip greens outside of here. None of your foods taste the same as it does here in the Mississippi Delta because in the Delta a lot of it was raised here. It’s got a different, good dusty taste to it.”

Once I made it into Mississippi, I aimed to find more of that food and figure out what about it made people drive to the poorest area in the country. And I started in Clarksdale.

Right at the famous crossroads where the late blues musician Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul, where Highway 61 and 49 intersect, I came across Abe’s Bar-B-Q, famous for its barbecue and hot tamales. Opened by Lebanese immigrants in 1924 (it moved to its current location in the mid-1930s), Abe’s is an institution. Paper plates are slathered with barbecue ribs, pulled pork, burgers and a constant flood of chili; the frozen grape leaves available for order are the only giveaway of its ethnic background.

Phyllis Fowler, sister of the current owner, Pat Davis, worked at the restaurant — then owned by the eponymous Abe — in high school and recently returned after retiring from a different career. It’s very much a family-run operation that includes cousins and her nephew.

After I took my time consulting the menu, she recommended a burger with coleslaw and barbecue sauce. “It’s what I grew up on,” she said. “Wrap it in foil for 30 minutes and it’s just perfect.”

I added an order of tamales topped with the house chili and cheese and went to town, ignoring her prescribed 30-minute wait, but the potency of the food made each bite more difficult than the last. The tamales were covered in so much chili I couldn’t tell how many there were.

How the tamale made its way to Mississippi is still debated. Some say it arrived with the migrant laborers who came in to help with the cotton harvest. Others claim Mississippi soldiers from the Mexican-American War returned with tamale recipes, and a few assert tamales are a result of a Native American population with a surplus of maize. Robert Johnson references the cornmeal and pork packaged treat in his 1936 song “They’re Red Hot,” in which he tells the story of a girl who is selling tamales “two for a nickel, got four for a dime.”

Whatever the true history, tamale production throughout the Mississippi Delta remains high. Whose is best is hotly contested, but in the spirit of the other trails the Southern Foodways Alliance, headquartered in Oxford, Miss., cobbled together a trail of its own for the gastronomically curious — the Hot Tamale Trail. Traveling its route proves that no two tamales are the same. (Doe’s Eat Place in Greenville, Reno’s Cafe in Greenwood and the White Front Cafe in Rosedale are a few other classic tamale joints worth checking out.)

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“Mile High” coconut meringue pie, a signature item at the Crystal Grill in Greenwood, Miss.Credit...Robert Rausch for The New York Times

Forty minutes south of Clarksdale sits Cleveland, and the Senator’s Place, a soul food restaurant that offers plate lunches and a simple cafeteria-like décor. Opened in 2003 by Willie Simmons, a Democratic state senator who has represented his district since 1993, the restaurant pays homage to Senator Simmons’ mother who fed 11 children on the recipes Senator Simmons’ kitchen staff now use. While there I gorged myself on a plate of smothered chicken, candied yams, collard greens with ham and neck bones.

“We eat practically every [neck bone] they send down South as well as the ones that are here because neck bones is kind of a special meal,” Senator Simmons told me, “especially when you can find the ones that we have that are meaty. When you season it properly, some folks say it becomes a delicacy.”

Neck bones come from the pig and were long considered a throwaway piece of the animal. The intrepid people of the Delta didn’t let that food go to waste and have always boldly cooked a cut many dismissed as inedible. It is considered a staple of soul food cooking and has recently gained popularity — an analogous reclamation to the more mainstream fandom surrounding pork belly.

“It used to be a cheap item, but the more demand you have for it, like anything else, the more the price tends to go up,” Senator Simmons said. “We’re seeing the cost of neck bones increase over the years, but it continues to be one of the items people love to eat.”

From there I traveled an hour to the southeast. The Crystal Grill is the most recognizable restaurant in Greenwood, though Lusco’s, an Italian restaurant famous for its whole broiled pompano, gives it a good run. For a town whose population has fallen below 16,000, it’s somewhat fanciful to think a restaurant would ever need to seat 250 people, yet the Crystal Grill has that capacity and has filled the seats for more than 80 years. They also have pie — its impressive “mile-high” meringue served atop chocolate or lemon filling has become the restaurant’s signature.

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Natayla Pitt’s-Thomas and Lillie Copper-Love enjoy a meal at the Delta Bistropub in Greenwood. The restaurant offers small plates and upscale cocktails.Credit...Robert Rausch for The New York Times

The restaurant “has grown on me for 60 years,” said Johnny Ballas, who still cooks in the kitchen and pulls 70-hour workweeks, and who told me that the secret of the meringue is in the simple syrup. “The best thing about it is seeing families in the tradition of children bringing their children, and I’ve seen all that from fathers bringing their kids and them bringing their kids now.”

But there’s an interesting dichotomy growing in Greenwood and outside of it. A “New South” has emerged. Though its ideas are somewhat vague, it tries to promote the belief the South has become more diverse, progressive and healthy. It’s a dismissal of the grease.

The Delta Bistropub, co-owned by Fred Carl Jr. — the founder and former chief executive of Viking Range Corporation, a company that has helped keep this small Delta town alive — and the James Beard-nominated chef Taylor Bowen Ricketts, offers small plates and upscale cocktails, but the food remains powerfully Southern to appease the expectations of tourists and locals alike.

Ms. Ricketts came to Greenwood from Oxford to start the Delta Fresh Market, a cafe and farmers’ market, and slowly developed an appreciation for her new town. The farm-to-table movement started in the Delta long before it became a national trend, she said. It’s this sort of authenticity that excites Ms. Ricketts, and though this isn’t where she is from, it is what has made it home.

“I cried for three days when I moved here,” she said, leaning forward on her stool and resting her elbows on her bar. “But now, I don’t know why — I hate to love it so much. There’s something about the dirt. It gets stuck in your toes.”

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Pickled onion hush puppies with pimento cheese queso and andouille sausage at the Delta Bistropub.Credit...Robert Rausch for The New York Times

It’s this same intangible flavor — almost a love — that attracts tourists and seems to coat the greens, chicken gizzards, tamales and neck bones like those beads of grease. As Senator Simmons explained to me, it’s a sense of home or belonging that the cooks and chefs of the region use that causes us to remember the ways “mama and grandmama used to make food taste. So you’re like, ‘Man, I can’t wait to get back home to eat some more of that.’ ”

Abe’s Bar-B-Q, 616 State Street, Clarksdale; 662-624-9947; abesbbq.com. Dish to get: The tamales with chili, but the burger and pulled pork aren’t too bad either.

Senator’s Place,1028 South Davis Avenue, Cleveland; 662-846-7434. Dish to get: Whatever they have prepped and ready — always grab the greens.

Crystal Grill, 423 Carrollton Avenue, Greenwood; 662-453-6530; crystalgrillms.com. Dish to get: A slice of lemon or chocolate meringue pie.

Lusco’s, 722 Carrollton Avenue, Greenwood; 662-453-5365; luscos.net. Dish to get: Order the whole broiled pompano and a beer out of a chilled mug.

Delta Bistropub, 222 Howard Street, Greenwood; 662-459-9345; deltabistropub.com. Dish to get: The fried green tomato BLT for lunch and catfish tempura for dinner.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section TR, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: On the Trail of Tamales, Gizzards and Pie. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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