112 replies to this topic

[Wilfrid1]

The latter is glaringly true, and of course it's reflected in the music. Heap of rock and blues in Memphis, endless country in Nashville, with a little bit of overlap. Johnny Cash, of course, is ubiquitous.

Thanks for the perspective, Ron. Beale Street's entertainment strip runs about three or four blocks now: I was looking at that as a decline from its historic days, but it's good to know it's actually a sort of come back.

Jaymes: well-spotted. The tour guide gave his guitar pick to another little girl, and the Munchkin just wouldn't smile until I got one for her. Still, I think the pout works well for an Elvis portrait.

[Jaymes]

Jaymes: well-spotted. The tour guide gave his guitar pick to another little girl, and the Munchkin just wouldn't smile until I got one for her. Still, I think the pout works well for an Elvis portrait.

She's actually got that Paris Hilton side-pout thing going.

Useful for encounters with paparazzi.

[Wilfrid1]

May I draw as much attention as possible to the mouthwatering barbecue photos at the Pink Pig, not to mention my elegant essay on boozing and bluesing around Beale Street?

Thank you.

[Ron Johnson]

May I draw as much attention as possible to the mouthwatering barbecue photos at the Pink Pig, not to mention my elegant essay on boozing and bluesing around Beale Street?

Thank you.

Very nice. That BBQ bologna sandwich at Cozy Corner brought back some memories. Your photo of the BBQ Shop has my old apartment in it. It's the beige brick building with white trim to the left of the restaurant. Ah, the good ole days.

When you were at the BBQ shop you were right by one of my favorite bars in the city, Zinnie's.

[Rebecca]

May I draw as much attention as possible to the mouthwatering barbecue photos at the Pink Pig, not to mention my elegant essay on boozing and bluesing around Beale Street?

Thank you.

You kindly said to discuss PPigNYC here and at least you gave those of us who were frozen out by the narrow band width yesterday had a pleasant tour of Memphis. For a transplanted NYC Brit you managed to hit all the tourist traps remarkably well, and threw in some nice BBQ sides, too. I especially appreciated that the Rendezvous "wasn't officially open yet" as they never are so they don't have to prep anything for the odd individual. Here is where a car is helpful to explore the Black neighborhoods and authentic brick ovens out back and front room counters selling Q. Look forward to Nashville. The TGIF on Ellston Place near Vanderbilt and the basement dorm lounges that sold beer and showed porn movies. A bunch of us NSF grantees took over there for a summer and one of the waiters was a med student who asked us to hold the stopwatch for him while he beat Houdini's record at slipping out of a straight jacket by dislocating his shoulder. Memories. Maybe different with Munchkin!

[flyfish]

Where did that pretty little girl get that great big pout?

Some kinda Elvis thing

(I'm channelling the Hip tonight)

[Ron Johnson]

May I draw as much attention as possible to the mouthwatering barbecue photos at the Pink Pig, not to mention my elegant essay on boozing and bluesing around Beale Street?

Thank you.

For a transplanted NYC Brit you managed to hit all the tourist traps remarkably well, and threw in some nice BBQ sides, too. I especially appreciated that the Rendezvous "wasn't officially open yet" as they never are so they don't have to prep anything for the odd individual. Here is where a car is helpful to explore the Black neighborhoods and authentic brick ovens out back and front room counters selling Q.

I am really at a loss as to what you are talking about here.

[Wilfrid1]

I've published my Nashville piece at the Pink Pig, as well as a review of Watermark - which, given some of the comments about Nashville dining on this thread, surpassed expectations.

The travel pieces on Memphis and Nashville are as long as they need to be, but I am already grinding my teeth over things I left out. One thing worth mentioning is that Johnny Cash is just everywhere. He worked and made his first recordings in Memphis, of course; Nashville still claims him as a country artist. Everyone is happy to play his songs. It's a reputation which just continues to grow, aided by the movie and by the astonishing late body of work (and not hindered, such is the world, by his death).

There is something so simple and unadorned about Cash's music, that you almost wonder why it endures so well. It has an artistic truth for which backing singers, steel guitars, orchestras and sparkling suits are no substitute. No real comparison with Elvis can be made, because Elvis left the building at the end of Act One. But with that qualification, Cash really starts to look like the very best of the troubadours. Better, dare I say, even than Hank Williams.

[Ron Johnson]

It's a shame that you did not have time to jump in a car and drive through the small towns of the north Mississippi hill country. Taking the long way on the backroads from Memphis to Oxford, Miss. is an amazing journey and really gives you some insight into the history and tradition behind the music, both country and blues. Even with the casinos in Tunica, it is still a part of the country that seems untouched by time.

[SLBunge]

There is something so simple and unadorned about Cash's music, that you almost wonder why it endures so well. It has an artistic truth for which backing singers, steel guitars, orchestras and sparkling suits are no substitute. No real comparison with Elvis can be made, because Elvis left the building at the end of Act One. But with that qualification, Cash really starts to look like the very best of the troubadours. Better, dare I say, even than Hank Williams.

Interesting. And I think I agree with the entire paragraph.

I wonder where Hank Williams would have gone with his music if he had been able to survive his addiction and lived another 40 years. Would he have kept reaching late in his life like Cash?

I remember spending quite a bit of time flipping through LPs and 45s in Ernest Tubb's on my one trip to Nashville. Lots of old country music greats in those bins.

[Wilfrid1]

You know, you're absolutely right. I cut Elvis a break, as we don't know what he'd have done if he'd survived. I should do the same for Williams. Dead at thirty.

[Wilfrid1]

It's a shame that you did not have time to jump in a car and drive through the small towns of the north Mississippi hill country. Taking the long way on the backroads from Memphis to Oxford, Miss. is an amazing journey and really gives you some insight into the history and tradition behind the music, both country and blues. Even with the casinos in Tunica, it is still a part of the country that seems untouched by time.

Sounds wonderful. So much to see.

Reminds me of the misery we did have getting from Memphis to Nashville on what, for most of its distance, is a two-lane (okay, four altogether) highway - and this is the major road in the state. We hopped on the Greyhound, conveniently a minute's walk from the hotel, and settled back for a three hour-ish ride. Nice to see some of the country anyway, I thought.

A truck had overturned just the other side of Jackson. I don't know how long it took to clear it, but until then we were moving slower than walking pace. I think it was a five-and-a-half-hour journey. At least. And you know, there's nothing wrong even with a long journey if the damn vehicle is moving.

The only consolation was my daughter taking after me rather than her mother. Mum checked into the hotel and went straight to bed with a headache and a huff. Me and the Munchkin headed downtown for some late-night honkytonking and a few burgers. I'm so proud.

[Sneakeater]

It turns out that most of the Famous BBQ Joints in Memphis were closed over the July 4 weekend. So the best barbecue I had was -- there goes my credibility -- takeout from Corky's the night I arrived. I thought it was fantastic, actually. Which shows what I know.

So without any transcendent barbecue, my best food over a long weekend in Memphis was at the Olive Branch Catfish Co., a fried fish shack just over the state line in Olive Branch, Mississippi.

You can get your catfish fried, grilled, or blackened. I am convinced that fried is the only way to go (the waitress's recommendation of blackened, I am confident, resulted only from her own quest for novelty). The frying is grease-free; the batter is perfect; the (farmed) fish succulent. This is really good food.

This place is also known for its hushpuppies. Confusingly, you get a bowl of what I took to be hushpuppies when you sit down: these consisted of almost unflavored fried dough. The real hushpuppies come with your fish: fried cornmeal, only lightly seasoned, with bits of onion. Very good -- although they could have been more aggressively seasoned.

The fried green tomato appetizer was heavenly. The fried dill pickles . . . well, I've had better in New York (I can't remember where: Hill Country?). It says something about the current barbecue/southern food craze here that you can get some dishes better than at a very good place in the South.

[Rail Paul]

So without any transcendent barbecue, my best food over a long weekend in Memphis was at the Olive Branch Catfish Co., a fried fish shack just over the state line in Olive Branch, Mississippi.

You can get your catfish fried, grilled, or blackened. I am convinced that fried is the only way to go (the waitress's recommendation of blackened, I am confident, resulted only from her own quest for novelty). The frying is grease-free; the batter is perfect; the (farmed) fish succulent. This is really good food.

This place is also known for its hushpuppies. Confusingly, you get a bowl of what I took to be hushpuppies when you sit down: these consisted of almost unflavored fried dough. The real hushpuppies come with your fish: fried cornmeal, only lightly seasoned, with bits of onion. Very good -- although they could have been more aggressively seasoned.

Holly has some address, phone info

[racheld]

Memphis was never "travel" to me---it was just a run up the road to visit the city cousins, or to shop at Sears (clothes) or Fred Montesi (groceries). The grocery trip was a once-a-month excursion, with a list a mile long and coolers in the trunk for the cold stuff. It was an important trip for my parents; they cooked far above the small-town grocery stores in our area. In spite of the fact that we had a huge vegetable garden and access to farmers' corn crops and bean-fields and greens patches---great boons to a small family with a couple of big freezers---we bought a lot of groceries, ten pounds of this and twenty of that.

Another farmer raised us a hog every year; I didn't mind the bringing-in of all that meat in huge pans, and I didn't blink at mixing the already-ground sausage to Daddy's recipe, or sorting and wrapping every piece, drugstore wrap, in butcher paper. But I refused to go out to the farm and see the pig standing there---every year the family joke was repeated at my expense. Apparently my dislike of the actual realities of procuring meat was evident at a young age. At three, I had pronounced, "I'm not gonna meet it. I don't like to eat nothin' I'm acquainted with."

And we always spoke for a side of beef, ditto the wrapping and writing on the packages. But beef is more impersonal, somehow. You see the ten or twelve pigs in the pen, and know one of them will be on your table. You look out passing the cattle, and the herd is just spread out over the field, like something by a landscape artist, and they're just part of the scenery.

But the trip to Memphis was, for me, a trip to Leonard's. I cannot remember the decor, nor the location, nor any of the people who cooked and served that heavenly food. But I remember rolling down my window blocks away, sniffing the air for the first hint of that pitsmoke, and that was enough to quicken the senses into one roiling hunger, stomping to be filled.

I ordered my usual: Sandwich, slaw on. I don't remember a choice of pulled or sliced---in fact, I don't remember hearing of "pulled" until ordering it at Abe's in Clarksdale. Leonard's meat was a smoky melt of velvety pork, sliced as best they could, considering the fall-apart nature of the stuff; the scent and the taste and the gentle mouth-rip were what all good pigs die for.

And the slaw---a vinegary, celery-seed floof of thin shreds of very-crisp cabbage, with a little bit of a mustard tang as it nestled atop the meat. Bottom bun had been slathered with a squirt of the slightly-hot sauce, neither tangy nor sweet, but like the smoke had just floated down the neck of the bottle after the mixture was made.

While you waited, you ordered crispins---the outside bits, chewy and smoky and blackened in places---judged too tough or dry to go on that sublime sandwich. They were plunked down in a crinkle of pinking-sheared waxed paper in a little red weavy plastic basket, and I thought them the height of appetizer success. They made wonderful chews with my Cherry Coke.

Another side of slaw---it was that good, forked up dripping its juices back into the heavy little white bowl; beans came in their own teensy brown-outside, white-inside crock, a little narrower at the top than at the bottom, like the nether half of a little tight-belted monk. The beans were baked long in that sauce, with some brown sugar and lots of the scrapings from the pork-cutting board, crispins and juicy bits and blackened wisps from that long pit-nap while we were sleeping.

The sandwich itself came in a matching basket, with a rustle to signal its importance; the bun was crisply toasted on the grill and its top was shiny from that final greasy spatula salute. A teensy bowl of slaw, little pot of beans---those are the stuff of dreams, now, up here in ketchup-ribs land. But we make our own, now, and even the smoke is real.