'Eat Drink Delta' explores the food and culture of the 'soul of the ...

"In many ways," author Susan Puckett writes, "the story of the Delta's unique food and dining culture is a story of survival."

Years ago, my husband and I took a rambling road trip through the Mississippi Delta up to Memphis, Tenn. It was one of those excursions without a real agenda or itinerary.

We mostly ran along Highway 61, darting off to Greenwood and Clarksdale. We sought out places we?d heard had great barbecue, blues or tamales; we paused at the Crossroads; stayed for a show at Morgan Freeman?s Ground Zero Blues Club, and, when we crossed into Tennessee, attended Sunday services preached by the soul-stirring Rev. Al Green at the Full Gospel Tabernacle Church.

It was a trip filled with unexpected delights. Fried kibbe and tabouli, for example, served alongside catfish and hushpuppies in towns where Lebanese immigrants settled long ago. In Greenwood, the home base for high-end Viking appliances, we stayed at the Alluvian, a boutique hotel that translates Southern charm into the luxury class.

That trip was my first real exploration of the Delta. Growing up in New Orleans, my previous Mississippi travels had mostly been a back-and-forth line along the Gulf Coast beaches.

The Delta feels like a different state, harder around the edges, worn from a history of struggle and poverty, but prouder, too. It?s a place that?s a pilgrimage for blues music fans, food historians, cultural documentarians, and, in recent years, travelers drawn down by the shiny, stylized images of the area shown in glossy magazines such as Garden & Gun.

The real story of the Delta is multi-layered. And it?s a subject tackled with research and respect by food writer Susan Puckett in her new book, ?Eat Drink Delta, A Hungry Traveler?s Journey Through the Soul of the South.? (The University of Georgia Press, Jan. 2013)

?Touring the Delta is as much a head trip as a road trip ? disturbing in some ways, inspiring and uplifting in others,? Puckett writes in the book, which reads like a travel guide with recipes.

Puckett grew up an hour from the Delta, in Jackson, Miss., and was the former food editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She approaches the subject with a reporter?s eye. The 11-page introduction provides a sweeping overview of the area, touching down on its history, its economy, its industries and its attitudes.

The book is separated into stops along the Delta?s map, bookended by Memphis and Vicksburg. It tells the back stories on notable restaurants, the antics of wild-game cook-offs and the history of the Piggly Wiggly grocery store chain (founded in 1916 by Clarence Saunders, it was the first self-service grocery store in the country.) Recipes for fried dill pickles from Tunica, butterhorn rolls from Clarksdale and Shelby Foote?s Mississippi Cornbread are sprinkled among the chapters.

Calling Memphis the ?Gateway to the Mississippi Delta,? Puckett uses it as a starting point, with a primer on Memphis barbecue alongside recipes for the Peabody Hotel?s Blue Suede Shoes Martini and Alcenia?s caf??s sweet potato pie.

?In many ways,? she writes, ?the story of the Delta?s unique food and dining culture is a story of survival. These boarded-up towns and hamlets may appear on the brink of death, but the region is very much alive. What lies beneath the surface is the undercurrent of hope and determination that has brought together whites and blacks to save a region that, for better or worse, is part of their very being. And the food traditions they have long cherished may very well be their path to salvation.?

Source: http://www.nola.com/dining/index.ssf/2013/01/eat_drink_delta_explores_the_f.html

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