Good Mornin’! Good Mornin’!
My wife tells me I talk too much about food. She didn’t grow up in the same zip code as me though, so I give her a pass.
Lol.
Anyway, there are flavors that define special moments in life.
My grandfather inherited a country store when he bought his farm – Macon Plantation – in Sunflower County in 1947 and it came replete with the best cheddar cheese wrapped in that red wax and bologna in a huge roll.
You had to cut both of them and weigh ’em up for folks. I never got “big enough” to handle the cutting tools but I was always plenty big enough to eat my fill and maybe somebody else’s.
Miss Scott had the best hamburgers in her shotgun shack restaurant just off Highway 7 on the outskirts of Morgan City but the 1971 tornado took that treasure from everyone.
And if you stayed on Highway 7, you’d end up in Belzoni and you could cut over to Highway 49 and enjoy one of the Delta’s greatest treasures – the Pig Stand. It was a shining beacon of incredible, delectable delights and known for their bar-b-que.
But I always got the steak fingers. A road trip from CDA to Humphreys Academy for any sporting event would hopefully end with a stop at the Pig Stand on the way home.
That huge gravel parking lot seemed to swallow up the building and I’m sure it was always packed but somehow everybody got served and nobody went home hungry. I don’t know when it closed but I can still taste those steak fingers and now my adult self wishes I had indulged in the BBQ excellence.
Miss Fannie had the greatest hamburgers across the Delta from her juke joint in downtown Inverness. I’ve had a few but I never got the chance to get in there myself to experience the atmosphere. A long lost flavor indeed – and then some.
There’s a strange one to add to the mix though.
When I was playing football at CDA, I had a 7th grade or so tradition. I’d stay at school and walk over to Miss Virginia’s Pharmacy and get a pizza that she microwaved. It was little and reminds me of the dollar store ones you might find today at the grocery store. But it was good, we won games and I had a tradition.
I don’t remember what I did the following years though. I think my parents put a stop to my charging food on game days.
The one final flavor was shared across the Delta and was flung from every single Mr. Quick store – the BBQ chicken sandwich. Wrapped in saran wrap and kept hot in the chicken heater with the best fried chicken and potato logs you can imagine, these delights were less than a dollar and I can remember eating anywhere from two to four at a time. I’ve tried to find the recipe when talking to the Greshams and McPhersons for other news stories but so far nobody’s giving it up.
These long lost food thoughts are a portal to some of the best times in life. I reckon that’s why they are still hanging in the recesses of my brain.
Maybe I’ll retire one day and configure a food truck with Stafford Shurden, Redigo Phillips and Bryan Davis and try to recreate each one of these.
Until then (anybody wanna finance this venture?) I’ve got my memories and the quest to find something similar tasting and tied to a new recollection of something great.
